forest

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A growth of trees and other plants covering a large area.
• noun A large number of objects bearing a similarity to such a growth, especially a dense collection of tall objects.
• noun A defined area of land formerly set aside in England as a royal hunting ground.
• transitive verb To plant trees on or cover with trees.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To cover with trees or wood; afforest.
• noun In phytogeography, specifically, a closed woodland, that is, one in which the crowns of the trees touch.
• noun A tract of land covered with trees; a wood, usually one of considerable extent; a tract of woodland with or without inclosed intervals of open and uncultivated ground.
• noun In Great Britain, a designation still retained for some large tracts of land or districts formerly but not now covered with trees or constituting royal forests (see below), especially such as have some of the distinctive characteristics or uses of wild or broken woodland, as the Forest of Dean in England or some of the deer-forests of Scotland.
• noun In English law, and formerly also in Scots law, a territory of woody grounds and pastures privileged for wild beasts and fowls of chase and warren to rest and abide in, generally belonging to the sovereign, and set apart for his recreation, or granted by him to others, under special laws, and having officers specially appointed to look after it; a hunting-preserve maintained at public expense for royal or aristocratic use: specifically called a royal forest.
• Pertaining or relating to forests; sylvan: as, forest law.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To cover with trees or wood.
• noun An extensive wood; a large tract of land covered with trees; in the United States, a wood of native growth, or a tract of woodland which has never been cultivated.
• noun (Eng. Law) A large extent or precinct of country, generally waste and woody, belonging to the sovereign, set apart for the keeping of game for his use, not inclosed, but distinguished by certain limits, and protected by certain laws, courts, and officers of its own.
• adjective Of or pertaining to a forest; sylvan.
• adjective (Zoöl.) A fly of the genus Hippobosca, esp. H. equina. See Horse tick.
• adjective a grassy space in a forest.
• adjective laws for the protection of game, preservation of timber, etc., in forests.
• adjective a tree of the forest, especially a timber tree, as distinguished from a fruit tree.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A dense collection of trees covering a relatively large area. Larger than woods.
• noun Any dense collection or amount.
• noun historical A defined area of land set aside in England as royal hunting ground or for other privileged use; all such areas.
• noun graph theory A disjoint union of trees.
• verb transitive To cover an area with trees.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb establish a forest on previously unforested land
• noun land that is covered with trees and shrubs
• noun the trees and other plants in a large densely wooded area