copse

plural copses

1. A coppice: an area of woodland managed by coppicing (periodic cutting near stump level).

   Synonyms: mott

2. Any thicket of small trees or shrubs, coppiced or not.

   Striking the highway beyond the little copse she skirted the dark iron palings enclosing Hare.

   1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth (hardback edition), p19

   3 more examples

   Agrimonie groweth in places not tylled, in rough stone mountaynes, in hedges and Copses, and by waysides.

   1578, Henry Lyte, transl., A niewe Herball or Historie of Plantes, translation of Cruydeboeck by Rembert Dodoens, page 57

   The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Among the woods and copses lose themselves,

   1798, [William Wordsworth], “Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey”, in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, London: […] J[ohn] & A[rthur] Arch, […], →OCLC, page 202

   Three thundercloven thrones of oldest snow, / Stood sunsetflushed: and, dewed with showery drops, / Upclomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.

   1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 109

   Synonyms: thicket, bush, orchard

3. Any woodland or woodlot.

   Synonyms: stand, wood, woods

present singular third person copses · participle present copsing · participle past copsed · past copsed

1. transitiveagricultureTo trim or cut.
2. transitiveagricultureTo plant and preserve.