Gorse

//ɡɔɹs// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An evergreen shrub, of the genus Ulex, having thorns, spiny leaves, and yellow flowers. countable, uncountable

    "The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common."

  2. 2
    very spiny and dense evergreen shrub with fragrant golden-yellow flowers; common throughout western Europe wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
furzewhinfurzeirish gorseshrubulex europaeus

Example

More examples

"The hills of Galicia are adorned with granite and gorse."

Etymology

From Middle English gorst, gors, from Old English gors, gorst, from Proto-West Germanic *gorst, from Proto-Germanic *gurstaz or Proto-West Germanic *gerstu (“barley”). Akin to German Gerste (“barley”) and Latin hordeum (“barley”). Also compare Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰer- (“to bristle”), whence Proto-Celtic *garwos.

Related phrases

Meynell's Gorsegorse birdgorse chatgorse duckgorse hatcher

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.