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Copse vs Spinney - What's the difference?

copse | spinney |

As nouns the difference between copse and spinney

is that copse is a thicket of small trees or shrubs while spinney is a small copse or wood, especially one planted as a shelter for game birds.

As a verb copse

is to trim or cut.

copse

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A thicket of small trees or shrubs.
  • * 1798 , , Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey , lines 9–15 (for syntax):
    • 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,
    Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
    ’Mid groves and copses .
  • * 1919 , , Valmouth , Duckworth (hardback edition), p19:
    • Striking the highway beyond the little copse she skirted the dark iron palings enclosing Hare.

    Synonyms

    * coppice

    See also

    * bush, bushes, forest, mott, orchard * stand, thicket, wood, woods

    Verb

    (cops)
  • (horticulture) To trim or cut.
  • (horticulture) To plant and preserve.

    • Anagrams

    * copes, scope

    spinney

    English

    Alternative forms

    * spinny

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (UK) A small copse or , especially one planted as a shelter for game birds.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1905, author=
    • , title= , chapter=2 citation , passage=“H'm !” he said, “so, so—it is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what [...] will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough. It was last Saturday […] that two boys, playing in the little spinney just outside Wembley Park Station, came across three large parcels done up in American cloth. […]”}}
  • *

    • References

    * OED 2nd edition 1989 ----