bracken

IPA/ˈbrækən/
KK[brˈækən]IPA/ˈbrækən/

bracken — noun

1. a tall wild fern with large, soft leaves that spreads in thick patches over hill

1.nounC1
Definition

a tall wild fern with large, soft leaves that spreads in thick patches over hills, woods, and open land, turning brown in autumn

Example

Thick bracken covered the hillside, hiding the narrow path to the lake.

uncountable mass noun: 'thick bracken covered the hillside'

Maeve pushed through the tall bracken to reach the old stone wall.

collocation: push through the bracken

Common collocations
  • thick bracken
  • tall bracken
  • cut back the bracken
  • a carpet of bracken
Synonyms
  • fern

    the general category; bracken is one large, common, fast-spreading wild kind of fern

  • brake

    an old or literary word for an area thickly covered with bracken or rough ferns

Usage Note

Usually uncountable: treat the plant as a mass ('the bracken', 'through bracken'), not 'a bracken' or 'brackens'. The subject or object is typically the plant covering an area of land.

Common Mistakes

We walked through the brackens.
We walked through the bracken.
bracken is uncountable, so it has no normal plural form.

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All three words name leafy, non-flowering plants, but their scope differs. 'Fern' is the broad, everyday term for any plant of this family, from a small houseplant fern to a giant tree fern. 'Bracken' is much narrower: it names one large, tough, fast-spreading wild fern that covers hillsides, woods, and open ground, often becoming a nuisance for farmers. 'Brake' is an old or literary word, now rare, for a patch of land thickly grown with bracken or other rough ferns. In short, choose 'fern' when speaking generally, 'bracken' for the specific wild plant that blankets the countryside, and 'brake' only in older or poetic writing. For example, you might say 'the garden ferns need watering' but 'the deer vanished into the bracken on the hill'.

bracken ↗fern ↗brake ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • a clump of bracken
  • a carpet of bracken

Phrases

  • cut back the bracken
  • covered in bracken

Prepositions

  • through the bracken
  • in the bracken
  • under the bracken

Etymology

Old NorseMiddle EnglishEnglish

The word 'bracken' entered English in the Middle Ages from a Scandinavian source, related to an Old Norse word for fern or rough undergrowth. It has kept its meaning of a large, common wild fern ever since, and is especially associated with the hills and moorland of Britain.

First known use

15th century

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1