bush out

Verb

bush out (third-person singular simple present bushes out, present participle bushing out, simple past and past participle bushed out)

1. (intransitive) To be bushy; to protrude in a thick tuft.
   • [The Grizzly] has a heavy head, a rather wolflike face, with full cheek tufts of fur bushing out well up to the ears,1898, Mabel Osgood Wright, chapter 17, in Four-Footed Americans and Their Kin, New York: Macmillan, page 242
   • Round the broken top of the tower the ivy bushed out, old and handsome.1913, D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth, Part 2, Chapter 7, p. 169
2. (intransitive) To become bushy; to grow into the form of a thick tuft.
   • Removing the shoots on the side of the plant will encourage it to grow upward instead of bushing out.
   • [The walls] were all couered ouer with a crusting of Pearle, close ioyned and set together: and towardes the toppe, there sprouted out greene yuie, the leaues thickning and bushing out from the Pearles,1592, Francesco Colonna, translated by Robert Dallington, The Strife of Loue in a Dreame, London: Simon Waterson
3. (transitive) To cause (something) to protrude in a thick tuft.
   • The Stalking-Hedge should be two or three Yards long, and about a Yard and an half high, and made in small Wands, and bushed out in the manner of a true Hedge, with certain Supports or Stakes, to bear it up from falling whilst you take your aim to Shoot. And this is to be carried before you for...1686, Richard Blome, The Gentlemans Recreation, London, Part 4, Chapter 5, p. 127
   • Mr. FOLIO […] waited in his gold laced hat with a handkerchief of Mrs. FOLIO’s about his ears, till the return of his wig, properly bushed out and powdered,1763, George Colman, Terrae-Filius, Number 3, 7 July, 1763, in Prose on Several Occasions, London: T. Cadel, 1787, p. 249