Grove (nature)

Other words for groups of trees include woodland, woodlot, thicket, and stand.

The main meaning of grove is a group of trees that grow close together, generally without many bushes or other plants underneath.

It is related to Old English grǣf, grǣfe ('brushwood; thicket; copse'), Old English grǣfa ('thicket'), dialectal Norwegian greive ('ram with splayed horns'), dialectal Norwegian greivlar ('ramifications of an antler'), dialectal Norwegian grivla ('to branch, branch out'), Old Norse grein ('twig, branch, limb'), and cognate with modern English greave.

Historically, groves were considered sacred in pagan, pre-Christian Germanic and Celtic cultures.

Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen argues that "we can assume that sacred groves actually existed due to repeated mentions in historiographical and ethnographical accounts.