heath

(hēth)

1. Any of various usually low-growing shrubs of the genus Erica and other genera of the heath family, native to Europe and South Africa and having small evergreen leaves and small, colorful, urn-shaped flowers. Also called heather.

2. An extensive tract of uncultivated open land covered with herbage and low shrubs; a moor.

[Middle English, uncultivated land, from Old English hǣth; see kaito- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

heath

(hiːθ)

1. (Physical Geography) Brit a large open area, usually with sandy soil and scrubby vegetation, esp heather

2. (Plants) Also called: heather any low-growing evergreen ericaceous shrub of the Old World genus Erica and related genera, having small bell-shaped typically pink or purple flowers

3. (Plants) any of several nonericaceous heathlike plants, such as sea heath

4. (Plants) Austral any of various heathlike plants of the genus Epacris: family Epacridaceae

5. (Zoology) any of various small brown satyrid butterflies of the genus Coenonympha, with coppery-brown wings, esp the large heath (C. tullia)

[Old English hǣth; related to Old Norse heithr field, Old High German heida heather]

ˈheathˌlike adj

ˈheathy adj

Heath

(hiːθ)

(Biography) Sir Edward (Richard George). 1916–2005, British statesman; leader of the Conservative Party (1965–75); prime minister (1970–74)

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

heath

(hiθ)

n.

1. a tract of open and uncultivated land; wasteland overgrown with shrubs.

2. any of various low-growing shrubs of the genera Erica or Calluna, as heather, common on such land.

[before 900; Middle English; Old English hǣth, c. Old Saxon hētha, Middle High German heide, Old Norse heithr, Gothic haithi]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	heath - a low evergreen shrub of the family Ericaceae; has small bell-shaped pink or purple flowers Ericaceae, family Ericaceae, heath family - heathers erica, true heath - any plant of the genus Erica Bruckenthalia spiculifolia, spike heath - small evergreen mat-forming shrub of southern Europe and Asia Minor having stiff stems and terminal clusters of small bell-shaped flowers Calluna vulgaris, heather, Scots heather, ling, broom - common Old World heath represented by many varieties; low evergreen grown widely in the northern hemisphere Cassiope mertensiana, white heather - heath of mountains of western United States having bell-shaped white flowers Connemara heath, Daboecia cantabrica, St. Dabeoc's heath - low straggling evergreen shrub of western Europe represented by several varieties with flowers from white to rose-purple Bryanthus taxifolius, mountain heath, Phyllodoce caerulea - small shrub with tiny evergreen leaves and pink or purple flowers; Alpine summits and high ground in Asia and Europe and United States Brewer's mountain heather, Phyllodoce breweri, purple heather - semi-prostrate evergreen herb of western United States bush, shrub - a low woody perennial plant usually having several major stems
	2.	heath - a tract of level wasteland; uncultivated land with sandy soil and scrubby vegetation heathland barren, wasteland, waste - an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation; "the barrens of central Africa"; "the trackless wastes of the desert" Britain, Great Britain, U.K., UK, United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - a monarchy in northwestern Europe occupying most of the British Isles; divided into England and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland; `Great Britain' is often used loosely to refer to the United Kingdom

heath

noun moorland, moor, scrub, upland, open country, heathland, common land The park contains natural heath, woods and wetland.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

Heide

lande marais

landa brughiera erica

hei

heath

[hiːθ] N (esp Brit) (= moor etc) → brezal m, páramo m (esp LAm) (also heather) → brezo m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

heath

[ˈhiːθ] n (British) → lande fheat haze n → brume f de chaleur

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

heath

(= moorland) → Heide f; (= type of country) → Heide f, → Heideland nt

(= plant) → Heidekraut nt, → Erika f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

heath

[hiːθ] n (Brit) (moor) → landa, brughiera; (plant) → erica, brugo

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

In Staffordshire, on the estate of a relation where I had ample means of investigation, there was a large and extremely barren heath, which had never been touched by the hand of man; but several hundred acres of exactly the same nature had been enclosed twenty-five years previously and planted with Scotch fir.

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For gardens (speaking of those which are indeed princelike, as we have done of buildings), the contents ought not well to be under thirty acres of ground; and to be divided into three parts; a green in the entrance; a heath or desert in the going forth; and the main garden in the midst; besides alleys on both sides.

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Heath and Co., and the Tudor Series of the Macmillan Co.

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The road from Chiltern Grange is a lonely one, and at one spot it is particularly so, for it lies for over a mile between Charlington Heath upon one side and the woods which lie round Charlington Hall upon the other.

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TWO Blighted Beings, haggard, lachrymose, and detested, met on a blasted heath in the light of a struggling moon.

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The moon was full and broad in the dark blue starless sky, and the broken ground of the heath looked wild enough in the mysterious light to be hundreds of miles away from the great city that lay beneath it.

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He went through Islington; strode up the hill at Highgate on which stands the stone in honour of Whittington; turned down to Highgate Hill, unsteady of purpose, and uncertain where to go; struck off to the right again, almost as soon as he began to descend it; and taking the foot-path across the fields, skirted Caen Wood, and so came on Hampstead Heath. Traversing the hollow by the Vale of Heath, he mounted the opposite bank, and crossing the road which joins the villages of Hampstead and Highgate, made along the remaining portion of the heath to the fields at North End, in one of which he laid himself down under a hedge, and slept.

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I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in a hidden angle, I sat down under it.

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"Vancouver," "Labrador," "The White Mountains," the very names, thus casually mentioned on a Surrey heath, seemed full of the sounding sea.

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It was all rocky: however I got many birds' eggs; and, striking fire, I kindled some heath and dry sea-weed, by which I roasted my eggs.

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On they jog, with equal pace, through the verdant meadows or over the barren heath, their horses measuring four miles and a half per hour with the utmost exactness; the eyes of the beast and of his master being alike directed forwards, and employed in contemplating the same objects in the same manner.

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Leaving the thumbless archer and his brood, the wayfarers struck through the scattered huts of Emery Down, and out on to the broad rolling heath covered deep in ferns and in heather, where droves of the half-wild black forest pigs were rooting about amongst the hillocks.

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