BEECH
What does "BEECH" mean?
A tall, smooth-barked tree with oval leaves and small edible nuts, common in temperate forests.
Meanings
- A deciduous tree of the genus Fagus, with grey bark, glossy leaves, and triangular nuts called beechmast. An old copper beech shaded the whole corner of the churchyard.
- The pale, hard, close-grained wood of this tree, prized for furniture and tool handles. The chair frame was turned from solid beech.
Did you know?
- 'Beech' and 'book' grew from the same root: early Germanic peoples scratched runes onto beechwood tablets, so the tree that held the writing lent its name to the writing itself.
Word origin
From Old English 'bece' / 'boc', from the same Proto-Germanic root '*boko'; because early runes and writing were cut into beech bark and boards, the word for the tree is thought to be the source of the word 'book'.
Remember it
BEECH the tree has an extra E and ends in -CH like the wood you carve; the seaside BEACH swaps in an A for the sand.
A little poem
Grey smooth trunk - a knife
left two names inside a heart;
the bark grew them tall.
haiku
Wordplay
- How did the old beech become a poet? It had been growing books in its bark all along.
What it teaches
The page came from the tree before paper did; we have always written on whatever held still long enough.
Quick facts
What does BEECH mean?
A tall, smooth-barked tree with oval leaves and small edible nuts, common in temperate forests.
Is BEECH a valid word?
Yes — BEECH is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is BEECH?
BEECH has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does BEECH come from?
From Old English 'bece' / 'boc', from the same Proto-Germanic root '*boko'; because early runes and writing were cut into beech bark and boards, the word for the tree is thought to be the source of the word 'book'.
What can BEECH teach us?
The page came from the tree before paper did; we have always written on whatever held still long enough.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.