Definition of "bough"
bough
noun
plural boughs
A tree-branch, usually a primary one directly attached to the trunk.
Quotations
Where the Bee ſucks, there ſuck I, / In a Cowſlips bell, I lie, / There I cowch when Owles doe crie, / On the Batts backe I doe flie / after Sommer merrily. / Merrily, merrily, ſhall I liue now / Vnder the bloſſom that hangs on the Bow.
1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene i], page 17, column 1
[Y]ou are to faſten that line to any bow neer to a hole where a Pike is, or is likely to lye, or to have a haunt, […]
1653, Iz[aak] Wa[lton], chapter VII, in The Compleat Angler or The Contemplative Man’s Recreation. Being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing, […], London: […] T. Maxey for Rich[ard] Marriot, […]; reprinted as The Compleat Angler (Homo Ludens; 6), Nieuwkoop, South Holland, Netherlands: Miland Publishers, 1969,
When the Corn was ſow'd, I had no Harrow, but was forced to go over it my ſelf, and drag a great heavy Bough of a Tree over it, to Scratch it, as it may be call'd, rather than Rake or harrow it.
1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], 3rd edition, London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], published 1719, page 139
Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet: or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and its curving shore far below us.
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., page 121
[T]he creature [a Wagler's viper (Tropidolaemus wagleri)] is arboreal and feeds on birds. This extremely agile prey it is able to capture with ease, because it has developed a prehensile tail whereby it is able to take a secure grip of a bough, leaving the rest of the body free to be instantly uncoiled as the fatal dart on the victim is made. The green colour of the young snake is a protective garment, enabling it to lie concealed among the smaller green boughs. Later, with increased bulk, older and therefore black boughs have to bear the weight of the body, against which a green body would be somewhat conspicuous, or would at any rate excite suspicion.
1913, W[illiam] P[lane] Pycraft, “Reptilian Liveries”, in The Infancy of Animals, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, pages 173–174
(obsolete, figuratively, poetic) A gallows.
Quotations
It was vſed of auncient time in Gauelkind land, & hath receiued the allowance and iudgement of a good and lawfull cuſtome, that if the huſband be attainted and executed for a felonie by him committed, yet ſhall his wife for the ſolace of her loſſe and deſolation haue her dowrie of his land, and alſo the heire ſhall inherite the ſame according to that olde ſaying: The father to the bough, & the ſonne to the plough, […]
1584, A Breefe Discourse, Declaring and Approuing the Necessarie and Inuiolable Maintenance of the Laudable Customes of London: […], London: […] Henrie Midleton for Rafe Newberie, pages 26–27