birch

CEFRC1

/bɜːtʃ/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    hard close-grained wood of any of various birch trees; used especially in furniture and interior finishes and plywood.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A hard wood taken from the birch tree, typically used to make furniture.

Examples

  • The birch leaves have already turned yellow.

  • The sweet lulling beauty of the birch.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
3
Synonyms
1

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A stick, rod or bundle of twigs made from birch wood, used for punishment.

  2. Any of various trees of the genus Betula, native to countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

  3. A birch-bark canoe.

More examples

In context

  • There was a birch tree in our garden, but it died.

  • […] and was tied to a tree and soundly birched with a bundle of furze

  • That the morrow would see us arraigned 'fore the Head And probably birched with a willow

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The canoe was crafted from the flexible bark of a white blank tree.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

PIE word *bʰerHǵós From Middle English birche, birk, from Old English birċe, bierċe, from Proto-West Germanic *birkijā, from Proto-Germanic *birkijǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerHǵos. Cognates Compare West Frisian bjirk, German Birke, variant of *berkō (compare Dutch berk, Danish birk, Swedish björk, Norwegian bjørk), Sanskrit भूर्ज (bhūrjá), Lithuanian béržas, Czech bříza, Ossetian бӕрз (bærz), Russian берёза (berjóza)), Latin fraxinus (“ash tree, ash javelin”), Albanian bredh.