Definitions

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

  • noun A dense growth of shrubs or underbrush; a copse.
  • noun Something suggestive of a dense growth of plants, as in impenetrability or thickness.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Specifically, in forestry, a stand of saplings.
  • noun A number of shrubs, bushes, or trees set and growing close together; a thick coppice, grove, or the like.

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

  • noun A wood or a collection of trees, shrubs, etc., closely set.

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

  • noun A dense, but generally small, growth of shrubs, bushes or small trees; a copse.
  • noun computing, figuratively The collection of many small linked files created when a document is saved in HTML format by some word processors and web site creation software.

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

  • noun a dense growth of bushes

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Old English thiccet, from thicce, thick; see thick.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English, from Old English þiccet from þicce "thick" + Old English nominal suffix -et

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Examples

  • This historical thicket is rendered all but impenetrable by the facts that, as Browning lucidly and vividly demonstrates, German anti-Semitism was hardly a fixed concept but, rather, evolved and mutated with the ever shifting circumstances; that the Nazi regime and its chains of command and decision were highly decentralized — which meant that at any given moment the interpretations and conceptions of, say, Goebbels and Rosenberg concerning the timing and realization of the Final Solution could vary significantly from those of Himmler and Heydrich; and, most important, that the documentary evidence is both vast and frustratingly incomplete.

    New & Noteworthy 2004

  • This historical thicket is rendered all but impenetrable by the facts that, as Browning lucidly and vividly demonstrates, German anti-Semitism was hardly a fixed concept but, rather, evolved and mutated with the ever shifting circumstances; that the Nazi regime and its chains of command and decision were highly decentralized — which meant that at any given moment the interpretations and conceptions of, say, Goebbels and Rosenberg concerning the timing and realization of the Final Solution could vary significantly from those of Himmler and Heydrich; and, most important, that the documentary evidence is both vast and frustratingly incomplete.

    New & Noteworthy 2004

  • I do recall a thicket of reporters, which is what I understand the Beitbarts of the world were claiming should have picked up the wrongful language if it occurred.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » The Clinton Terror Bill 2010

  • The bushes near Carleton Beck exuded the deep sonorous zoom sound of queen red-tailed and buff-tailed bumblebees, and all around the lee side of the thicket were the hoverflies known technically as Eristalis intricarius.

    Country diary: Claxton, Norfolk 2011

  • I do recall a thicket of reporters, which is what I understand the Beitbarts of the world were claiming should have picked up the wrongful language if it occurred.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » The Clinton Terror Bill 2010

  • The light that led me out of the thicket is the familiar and now comforting gaze of Sergeant Sunshine, his sunglasses illuminated by a row of spotlights from the street announcing the opening of a new “space” for artists and musicians in what used to be a drinking bar for off-duty police officers.

    The Madonnas of Echo Park Brando Skyhorse 2010

  • The light that led me out of the thicket is the familiar and now comforting gaze of Sergeant Sunshine, his sunglasses illuminated by a row of spotlights from the street announcing the opening of a new “space” for artists and musicians in what used to be a drinking bar for off-duty police officers.

    The Madonnas of Echo Park Brando Skyhorse 2010

  • Still, lifting some of the most egregious constraints--namely the thicket of protections for tenured teachers--in union contracts will likely do some good.

    Paras Bhayani: Epic Miscalculation Has Illinois Teachers Unions in the Crosshairs Paras Bhayani 2010

  • The light that led me out of the thicket is the familiar and now comforting gaze of Sergeant Sunshine, his sunglasses illuminated by a row of spotlights from the street announcing the opening of a new “space” for artists and musicians in what used to be a drinking bar for off-duty police officers.

    The Madonnas of Echo Park Brando Skyhorse 2010

  • The light that led me out of the thicket is the familiar and now comforting gaze of Sergeant Sunshine, his sunglasses illuminated by a row of spotlights from the street announcing the opening of a new “space” for artists and musicians in what used to be a drinking bar for off-duty police officers.

    The Madonnas of Echo Park Brando Skyhorse 2010

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