undergrowth

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C1 — Advanced

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun the brush (small trees and bushes and ferns etc.) growing beneath taller trees in a wood or forest

From under- + growth. Cognate with West Frisian ûndergroei (“undergrowth”).

Then something scuttled through the undergrowth. — Tales of Space and Time, H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
He flung himself resolutely into the tangle of undergrowth. — Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
The undergrowth about here, too, had an odd appearance. — She who sleeps : $b A romance of New York and the Nile, Sax Rohmer

underbrush, underwood

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