heath

From Middle English heeth, heth, hethe, from Old English hǣþ (“heath, untilled land, waste; heather”), from Proto-West Germanic *haiþi, from Proto-Germanic *haiþī (“heath, waste, untilled land”), from Proto-Indo-European *kayt- (“forest, wasteland, pasture”).

Cognate with Dutch heide (“heath, moorland”), German Heide (“heath, moor”), Norwegian hei (“heath”), Swedish hed (“heath, moorland”), Old Welsh coit (“forest”), Welsh coed (“forest”), Latin būcētum (“pastureland”, literally “cow-pasture”) -cetum (“place of, grove of”).

• Audio (UK):

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• IPA^(key): /hiːθ/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -iːθ

heath (countable and uncountable, plural heaths)

1. A tract of level uncultivated land with sandy soil and scrubby vegetation; heathland.
   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

     1. Where the place?/2. Vpon the Heath/3. There to meet with Macbeth

   • 1955 May, Rev. A. W. V. Mace, “An Irish Journey—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 303:

     These two stood in the corridor, waving till the last of the platform was out of sight; then they came into our compartment, and the woman cried a little. Soon she dried her eyes, and went back into the corridor, to have a last glimpse of her native heath.

2. Any small evergreen shrub of the family Ericaceae.
   • 1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 258:

     There was nobody living in Jim's old house, and some of the windows was broken; but there was heath growing back and front.

   1. in Erica spp.
   2. in Cassiope spp.
   3. in Daboecia spp.
   4. in Epacris spp. (Australian heath)
   5. in Leucopogon spp. (beard heath)
   6. in Phyllodoce spp. (mountain heath)
3. (countable) Any butterfly or moth of species:
   1. Coenonympha spp., a genus of brush-footed butterfly, of the palaearctic.
      1. Coenonympha pamphilus, native to Europe, Asia except tropical India and Indochina, and Northern Africa, the small heath
      2. Coenonympha tullia, native to Europe, Asia except tropical India and Indochina, and North America, the large heath
   2. Melitaea athalia (heath fritillary)
   3. Semiothisa clathrata (latticed heath)
   4. Ematurga atomaria (common heath)

• The word heaths may describe multiple disconnected heathlands.

• (shrub): heather

• theah, hathe