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heath

/hiːθ/ noun

Latin root: būcētum Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about heath at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

  1. A low evergreen shrub of the family Ericaceae; has small bell-shaped pink or purple flowers.
  2. A tract of level wasteland; uncultivated land with sandy soil and scrubby vegetation.

Origin

From Middle English heth, heeth, hethe, from Old English hǣþ (“heath, untilled land, waste; heather”), from Proto-West Germanic *haiþi, from Proto-Germanic *haiþī (“heath, waste, untilled land”), from Proto-Indo-European *kayt- (“forest, wasteland, pasture”). Cognate with Dutch heide (“heath, moorland”), German Heide (“heath, moor”), Norwegian hei (“heath”), Swedish hed (“heath, moorland”), Old Welsh coit (“forest”), Welsh coed (“forest”), Latin būcētum (“pastureland”, literally “cow-pasture”) -cetum (“place of, grove of”).

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)