birch
UK/bɜːtʃ//bɝt͡ʃ/
birch noun: any of various trees of the genus Betula, native to countries in the Northern Hemisphere.
Noun
birch (countable and uncountable, plural birches)
- Any of various trees of the genus Betula, native to countries in the Northern Hemisphere.
- A hard wood taken from the birch tree, typically used to make furniture.
- A stick, rod or bundle of twigs made from birch wood, used for punishment.
- A birch-bark canoe.
Verb
birch (third-person singular simple present birches, present participle birching, simple past and past participle birched)
- To punish with a stick, bundle of twigs, or rod made of birch wood.
- To punish as though one were using a stick, bundle of twigs, or rod made of birch wood.
- That the morrow would see us arraigned 'fore the Head
And probably birched with a willow1902, M. M. Read, “The Midnight Feast”, in The Boy's Own Annual, volume 25, page 63 - […] and was tied to a tree and soundly birched with a bundle of furze2012, Charles J. Esdaile, Outpost of Empire: The Napoleonic Occupation of Andalucia, 1810–1812, page 319
- That the morrow would see us arraigned 'fore the Head
Proper noun capitalized: Birch
Birch (plural Birches or (rare) Birchs)
- A surname.
- A nickname of the surname Birchall.
- A village and civil parish in Colchester borough, Essex, England (OS grid ref TL9419).
- A small village in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England (OS grid ref SD8507).
- A township in Beltrami County, Minnesota, United States.
- An extinct town in Eureka County, Nevada, United States.
- A town in Lincoln County, Wisconsin, United States.
- An unincorporated community in the town of Sanborn, Ashland County, Wisconsin.
birch meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Sanskrit
birch in Tamil
- பிர்ச் மரம்
birch in Bengali
- tree
- ভূর্জ bhūrjô
birch in Malayalam
- പൂവരശ്, വെൺചന്ദനം, ചീലാന്തി, അടിക്കാനുപയോഗിക്കുന്ന വടി
birch in Sanskrit
- tree
- भूर्ज bhūrja
More languagesFewer languages
- birch in Tagalog
- abedul
- birch in Arabic
- بَتُولَا batūlā
- birch in Persian
- توس tus, غان ġân
- birch in Vietnamese
- bạch dương class cây
Examples of birch in a sentence
- Many trees have alternate leaf arrangement (e.g. birch, oak and mulberry).
- A birch twig or a cornstalk is monopodial.
- There was a fire drill this morning. We had to leave the building calmly and go to the birch tree, our meeting point.
Synonyms of birch
Forms of birch
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | birches |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | birches |
| present participle | birching |
| past participle | birched |
| past | birched |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Birches |
| plural (rare) | Birchs |
Origin of birch
PIE word *bʰerHǵós From Middle English birche, birk, from Old English birċe, bierċe, from Proto-West Germanic *birkijā, from Proto-Germanic *birkijǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerHǵos. Cognates Compare West Frisian bjirk, German Birke, variant of *berkō (compare Dutch berk, Danish birk, Swedish björk, Norwegian bjørk), Sanskrit भूर्ज (bhūrjá), Lithuanian béržas, Czech bříza, Ossetian бӕрз (bærz), Russian берёза (berjóza)), Latin fraxinus (“ash tree, ash javelin”), Albanian bredh.
Words formed from birch
- American white birch
- Asian black birch
- birchbark
- birch beer
- birch bolete
- birch borer
- birch bracket
- birchen
- birch-leaved bellflower
- birchlike
- birch mouse
- birch of Jamaica
- birch oil
- birch partridge
- birch sap
- birch skeletonizer
- birch tar
- birch tree
- Birch Vale
- birch wine
- birch wood
- birchwood
- birchy
- black birch
- black birch tree
- bronze birch borer
- canoe birch
- cherry birch
- curly birch
- Dahurian birch
- Daurian birch
- downy birch
- dwarf birch
- flame birch
- Japanese cherry birch
- masur birch
- Much Birch
- non-birch
- northern birch mouse
- oil of birch
- paper birch
- red birch
- river birch
- silver birch
- sweet birch
- water birch
- weeping birch
- white birch
- yellow birch
- bircher
- unbirched
- Birchism
- Birchist
- Birchite
- Birch reduction
Phrases with birch
Words that rhyme with birch
Questions about birch
- What does birch mean?
- Birch means any of various trees of the genus Betula, native to countries in the Northern Hemisphere.
- What is birch in Tamil?
- Birch in Tamil is பிர்ச் மரம். See Birch meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is birch?
- Birch can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce birch?
- Birch is pronounced /bɜːtʃ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of birch?
- The plural of birch is birches.
Words near birch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: birch (page history and authors); Birch (page history and authors); birch (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); birch (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-birch.ogg.
Cite this entry: “birch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/birch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.