Meaning & use
forest
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Meanings
nouncountable
A big area of land thickly covered with trees and other plants.
Grammar: Countable: a forest, many forests.
Patterns
- in the forest
- a forest of something
We hiked through the forest for hours.
Wolves once lived in the forest near the village.
A thick forest covers the mountain.
nouncountablefigurative
A large number of tall, thin things standing close together.
Grammar: Often figurative: a forest of cranes.
Patterns
- a forest of something
A forest of cranes stood over the harbor.
He walked through a forest of raised hands.
A forest of antennas covered the rooftop.
nouncountableBritish
In Britain, a large area once reserved for hunting by the king or queen, whether or not it has many trees.
Grammar: Often part of a place name: Sherwood Forest.
Patterns
- royal forest
Sherwood Forest was once a royal hunting ground.
The New Forest is a famous English forest.
A medieval forest could include open heath.
Word forms
| plural | forests |
|---|
Common combinations
- dense forest
- A dense forest surrounded the cabin.
- rain forest
- The rain forest is home to millions of species.
- forest fire
- A forest fire burned through the hills.
- cut down a forest
- They cut down the forest to make farmland.
- deep in the forest
- The cottage lay deep in the forest.
- forest floor
- Sunlight rarely reaches the forest floor.
Synonyms and how they differ
- woods
- Woods is smaller and less dense than forest and is the common word for a nearby wooded area.
- jungle
- Jungle suggests a hot, tangled tropical forest, which is narrower than forest.
- woodland
- Woodland is a more formal word for land covered with trees, usually smaller than a forest.
- grove
- A grove is a small group of trees, much smaller than a forest.
Opposites
Word family
- forestry noun
- the science of managing forests
- forester noun
- a person who looks after a forest
- deforestation noun
- the clearing of forests
- reforest verb
- to replant trees
- forested adjective
- covered with forest
Commonly confused: forest or forrest?
forest vs forrest
Forrest is a name and not a normal spelling of the word. The correct spelling has one r in the middle.
Practice
Hikers got lost in the dense ___ north of the lake.
Choose one answer.
Forest is a thickly wooded area. A field or meadow is open land, and a desert has few plants.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “forest”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.