heath
pronunciation
How to pronounce heath in British English:
UK [hi:θ]
How to pronounce heath in American English:
US [hiθ]
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- Noun:
- a low evergreen shrub of the family Ericaceae; has small bell-shaped pink or purple flowers
- a tract of level wasteland; uncultivated land with sandy soil and scrubby vegetation
Word Origin
- heath
- heath: [OE] Heath goes back to Indo-European *kait-, denoting ‘open, unploughed country’. Its Germanic descendant *khaithiz produced German and Dutch heide and English heath. One of the commonest plants of such habitats is the heather, and this was accordingly named in prehistoric Germanic *khaithjō, a derivative of the same base as produced *khaithiz, which in modern English has become heath ‘plant of the heather family’. (The word heather [14] itself, incidentally, does not appear to be related. It comes from a Scottish or Northern Middle English hadder or hathir, and its modern English form is due to association with heath.)
- heath (n.)
- Old English hæð "untilled land, tract of wasteland," especially flat, shrubby, desolate land;" earlier "heather, plants and shrubs found on heaths," influenced by cognate Old Norse heiðr "heath, moor," both from Proto-Germanic *haithiz (cognates: Old Saxon hetha, Old High German heida "heather," Dutch heide "heath," Gothic haiþi "field"), from PIE *kaito "forest, uncultivated land" (cognates: Old Irish ciad, Welsh coed, Breton coet "wood, forest").
Example
- 1. Mr heath announced his decision .
- 2. Smoking does harm to our heath .
- 3. Heath then transforms his nanowire transistors into tiny biosensors .
- 4. Edward heath celebrated our entry into " the framework of a single community " .
- 5. According to the ministry of heath about 1200 people have died from cholera .