spinney

[ spin-ee ]
See synonyms for spinney on Thesaurus.com
noun,plural spin·neys.British.
  1. a small wood or thicket.

Origin of spinney

1
1300–50; Middle English <Middle French espinei (masculine), espinaie (feminine) a place full of thorns, derivative of espinespine; compare Late Latin spīnētum difficulty, equivalent to Latin spīn(a) thorn (see spine) + -ētum noun suffix (see arboretum)

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How to use spinney in a sentence

  • Cultivated fields there were few, tracts of furze--spinneys, as men then called small patches of wood--in plenty.

    The House of Walderne | A. D. Crake
  • It is a bare fold of land with one or two little scrubby spinneys alongside the plough.

    First and Last | H. Belloc
  • I saw your dark bay mare being taken home at Colbourne Spinneys, and I don't think she'll be fit to ride again this season.

    A Monk of Cruta | E. Phillips Oppenheim
  • There were no formal spinneys, nor wide stretches of old timber, such as we nowadays expect to see in a forest.

  • On this particular morning near the end of April, an unclouded sun lit up the verdant cornlands and larch spinneys.

    The Gypsy's Parson | George Hall

British Dictionary definitions for spinney

spinney

/ (ˈspɪnɪ) /


noun
  1. mainly British a small wood or copse

Origin of spinney

1
C16: from Old French espinei, from espine thorn, from Latin spīna

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012