Noun

(en noun)

A dense collection of trees covering a relatively large area. Larger than woods.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=29, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Unspontaneous combustion , passage=Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.}}

Any dense collection or amount.

forest of criticism.

(historical) A defined area of land set aside in England as royal hunting ground or for other privileged use; all such areas.

* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=

, title=Internal Combustion , chapter=2 citation , passage=Throughout the 1500s, the populace roiled over a constellation of grievances of which the forest' emerged as a key focal point. The popular late Middle Ages fictional character Robin Hood, dressed in green to symbolize the ' forest , dodged fines for forest offenses and stole from the rich to give to the poor. But his appeal was painfully real and embodied the struggle over wood.}}

(graph theory) A disjoint union of trees.

Noun

(en noun)

A dense, but generally small, growth of shrubs, bushes or small trees; a copse.

(figuratively) A dense aggregation of other things, concrete or abstract.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=(Timothy Garton Ash)

, volume=189, issue=6, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli , passage=Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.}}

(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.