Meaning of pleach | Babel Free

Definitions

To unite by interweaving, as (horticulture) branches of shrubs, trees, etc., to create a hedge; to interlock, to plash.

transitive

Equivalents

Examples

“Her Vine, the merry chearer of the heart, / Vnpruned, dyes: her Hedges euen pleach'd, / Like Priſoners wildly ouer-growne with hayre, / Put forth diſorder'd Twigs: [...]”

Her [France's] vine [i.e. grapevines which produce wine], the merry cheerer of the heart / Unpruned, dies; her hedges, though [once] evenly pleached, / Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair, / Put forth disordered twigs; …

“Nectar ran / In courteous fountains to all cups outreach'd; / And plunder'd vines, teeming exhaustless, pleach'd / New growth about each shell and pendent lyre; [...]”

“The season in which to pleach is not when the hedge is growing, but in the fall, between the falling of the leaves and the time when winter sets in. Osage thorn hedge should not be pleached during severe freezing weather, but pleaching may be done in mild weather, when there is but little frost in the wood, and in the winter in southern latitudes. In the northern belt, where the Osage thorn thrives, which is as far north as southern Wisconsin, it is not safe to pleach in winter.”

“[I]n Messina, he pleaches Leonato's bower with honeysuckle; [...]”

“In the southern and western districts of the county [Shropshire], a hatchet used by farmers and gardeners is called a "brummuck." [...] "Pleaching" hedges, a task needing much skill, is done with brummucks.”

“Here the reed warblers swing their dainty cradle, rocked by every gust which sways the tall reeds which they cunningly pleach and plait into its fragile sides, but woven deep enough to guard their tiny green and brown marbled eggs from accident.”

“You finish your A levels, you are so busy discovering yourself that you forget to go to college or get a vocation, you start working in a pub, and, when your best and only friend leaves town, you become a loner and invest yourself in things that rely little on the company of others, like pleaching willow and learning how to slum it comfortably under the stars, and singing.”

CEFR level