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furze

furze

1 9.9
A spiny evergreen bush with bright yellow flowers that grows on hills
  • noun
  • /fɜːz/
  • UK
translation icon : furze
  • The furze will spangle its gossamer with diamonds for your pleasure, and your way will be cast with the pearls of the wood dove's plume.
  • furze bush

Examples

  • Titanyen was a wide plain of muck held together by a furze of rank, sprawling weeds.

    Fiction book (2000)
  • But the furze is a shallow weed, and after only an hour the excuse work is mostly done, the thorny bush as root-exposed as if he were planting it instead of casting it out.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • "long heath, brown furze, anything.

  • So he goes after the roots of a furze bush.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • It's a pitch-filled thing, a furze bush, so it burns hot and fast.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground - long heath, brown furze, any thing.

  • Bedecking furze-clad heath and rushy waste

    Academic text (2017)
  • She kept running, chasing the bumblebees when the red earth gave way a bit, and she fell along the gorse and furze bushes hidden among the broom.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • Molehills are always surrounded by the marks of other forms of life: in the lines above, the intractable furze, rabbit tracks, sheep tracks, and wagon paths all point to this mutual flourishing.

    Academic text (2017)
  • The landscape was dotted with bright yellow flowers blooming from the furze bushes.

Synonyms

gorse
vsfurze
  • UK
1 9.1

A bush with sharp thorns and bright yellow flowers that smell nice

is the traditional alternate name used for the same shrub
whin
vsfurze
  • UK
1 9.9

A bush with sharp thorns and bright yellow flowers

is the alternate word used historically for the same shrub
Ulex europaeus
vsfurze
  • Specialized
9.1

A very spiny evergreen bush with bright yellow flowers

is another traditional name for that same shrub species
Irish gorse
vsfurze
  • UK
9.6

A very spiny evergreen bush with bright yellow fragrant flowers

is an alternate common name for the identical shrub
Ulex
vsfurze
  • Specialized
9.9

A spiny shrub with bright yellow flowers that grows in Europe and Asia

is the specific species term rather than the broader genus
Spanish gorse
vsfurze
  • US
9.3

A shrub with many bright yellow flowers that grows in warm places

is the common western European species rather than only a regional type
needle furze
vsfurze
  • UK
9.9

A prickly bush with bright yellow flowers that grows on moors

is the name for the shrub common across western Europe rather than moor-limited

Compounds

9.9

A prickly bush with bright yellow flowers that grows on moors

Surface Forms

furze singular
furzes plural

Etymology

The word furze comes from an old English word fyrse, which named the same 'spiny shrub' with bright yellow flowers. It is the same plant often called gorse, so the origin helps explain why furze still means that prickly, yellow-flowered bush you see on hills and hedges today.