bocage

American  

[boh-kahzh] / boʊˈkɑʒ /

noun

Fine Arts.

1. a decorative motif of trees, branches, or foliage, as in a tapestry or a ceramic figure group.

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bocage British  

/ bɒˈkɑːʒ /

noun

1. the wooded countryside characteristic of northern France, with small irregular-shaped fields and many hedges and copses

2. woodland scenery represented in ceramics

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Etymology

Origin of bocage

1635–45; < French; Old French boscage boscage

Example Sentences

In the Normandy stalemate after the brilliant capture of Cherbourg, he had used it tentatively, so G.I.s seemed to think, among the baffling hedgerows of the bocage country.

From Time Magazine Archive

The Americans had done more than break out of the bocage country by mere weight and superior fire power.

From Time Magazine Archive

To go from Nantes to La Rochelle you travel straight southward, across the historic bocage of La Vendee, the home of royalist bush-fighting.

From A Little Tour in France by James, Henry

In "the soft retirement of my bocage de Bentinck Street" the dog-days pass unheeded.

From Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography by Russell, George William Erskine

We retired into a bocage, and partook of one of the most delicious bottles of white wine which I ever remember to have tasted.

From A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three by Dibdin, Thomas Frognall