Word.ws English Dictionary

bushel

Syllables: bush·el/ˈbʊʃəl//ˈbuʃəl/

bushel noun: a dry measure, containing four pecks, eight gallons, or thirty-two quarts; equivalent in volume to approximately 0.0364 cubic meters (imperial bushel) or 0.0352 cubic meters (U.S. bushel).

bushel: a dry measure, containing four pecks, eight gallons, or thirty-two quarts; equivalent in volume to...
Image: Queensland Museum, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

bushel (plural bushels or (dialectal, obsolete) bushel)

  1. A dry measure, containing four pecks, eight gallons, or thirty-two quarts; equivalent in volume to approximately 0.0364 cubic meters (imperial bushel) or 0.0352 cubic meters (U.S. bushel).
    • The quarter, bushel, and peck are nearly universal measures of corn.1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 4, page 207
    • Forecasts are showing no sign of an end to the drought, with corn prices hitting a record high of $8.16 (£5.19) a bushel on Thursday, while soya beans hit a high of $17.17.2012 July 19, Josephine Moulds, “Record cereal prices stoke fears of global food crisis”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
  2. A vessel of the capacity of a bushel, used in measuring; a bushel measure.
    • And he sayde unto them: is the candle lighted, to be put under a busshell, or under the borde: ys it not therfore lighted that it shulde be put on a candelsticke?1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Mark iiij:[21]
  3. A quantity that fills a bushel measure.
    • a heap containing ten bushels of apples
  4. (colloquial, figuratively) A large indefinite quantity.
    • The prime minister[…]has got pounds of vision. Ounces of it! Pints! A whole bushel worth of phoned-in gibberish designed to get him through a single news cycle.2022 May 31, Marina Hyde, “Pounds, ounces, pints! Johnson is offering a whole bushel worth of phoned-in gibberish”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
    • The same film [Hamnet], in the coming weeks, will win awards by the bushel.2026 January 31, Janan Ganesh, “The Hamnet wars”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 20
  5. (UK) The iron lining in the nave of a wheel.
    Synonyms:
    box

Verb

bushel (third-person singular simple present bushels, present participle (US) busheling or (UK) bushelling, simple past and past participle (US) busheled or (UK) bushelled)

  1. (US, ambitransitive, tailoring) To mend or repair clothes.
  2. To pack grain, hops, etc. into bushel measures.

bushel meaning in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Indonesian

bushel in Tamil

எட்டு காலன் அளவு, மரக்கால்

bushel in Telugu

dry measure
తూము tūmu

bushel in Malayalam

bushel
പറ paṟa

bushel in Indonesian

dry measure
gantang

Examples of bushel in a sentence

  • The pickers are paid by the fortnight by the American bushel.
  • There are ten loads, aggregating five hundred bushels.
  • They’re long but not showy, with bushels of nickname options to welcome your personal touch.

All 22 example sentences with bushel

Synonyms of bushel

Forms of bushel

Noun
pluralbushels
plural (obsolete, dialectal)bushel
Verb
third-person singular presentbushels
present participle USbusheling
present participle UKbushelling
past participle USbusheled
past USbusheled
past participle UKbushelled
past UKbushelled

Plural of bushel: bushels

Origin of bushel

From Middle English busshel, from Old French boissel, from boisse, a grain measure based on Gaulish *bostyā (“handful”), from Proto-Celtic *bostā (“palm, fist”) (compare Breton boz (“hollow of the hand”), Old Irish bas), from Proto-Indo-European *gwost-, *gwosdʰ- (“branch”).

Words formed from bushel

Phrases with bushel

Words that rhyme with bushel

Questions about bushel

What does bushel mean?
Bushel means a dry measure, containing four pecks, eight gallons, or thirty-two quarts; equivalent in volume to approximately 0.0364 cubic meters (imperial bushel) or 0.0352 cubic meters (U.S. bushel).
What is bushel in Tamil?
Bushel in Tamil is எட்டு காலன் அளவு, மரக்கால். See Bushel meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is bushel?
Bushel can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce bushel?
Bushel is pronounced /ˈbʊʃəl/.
What is the plural of bushel?
The plural of bushel is bushels.

Words near bushel in the dictionary

  1. bushed
  2. bushed out
  3. Bushee
  4. Bushees
  5. Bushehr
  6. bushel
  7. bushel basket
  8. bushel baskets
  9. bushel measure
  10. bushel measures
  11. bushelage

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bushel (page history and authors); bushel (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); പറ (Malayalam) (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-bushel.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bushel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bushel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.