Word.ws English Dictionary

heath

/hiːθ/

heath noun: a tract of level uncultivated land with sandy soil and scrubby vegetation; heathland.

Noun

heath (countable and uncountable, plural heaths)

  1. A tract of level uncultivated land with sandy soil and scrubby vegetation; heathland.
    • 1. Where the place?/2. Vpon the Heath/3. There to meet with Macbethc. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    • These two stood in the corridor, waving till the last of the platform was out of sight; then they came into our compartment, and the woman cried a little. Soon she dried her eyes, and went back into the corridor, to have a last glimpse of her native heath.1955 May, Rev. A. W. V. Mace, “An Irish Journey—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 303
  2. Any small evergreen shrub of the family Ericaceae.
    • There was nobody living in Jim's old house, and some of the windows was broken; but there was heath growing back and front.1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 258
    1. in Erica spp.
    2. in Cassiope spp.
    3. in Daboecia spp.
    4. in Epacris spp. (Australian heath)
    5. in Leucopogon spp. (beard heath)
    6. in Phyllodoce spp. (mountain heath)
  3. Coenonympha pamphilus, native to Europe, Asia except tropical India and Indochina, and Northern Africa, the small heath
  4. Coenonympha tullia, native to Europe, Asia except tropical India and Indochina, and North America, the large heath
  5. Melitaea athalia (heath fritillary)
  6. Semiothisa clathrata (latticed heath)
  7. Ematurga atomaria (common heath)

Proper noun capitalized: Heath

Heath

  1. A surname.
    • Edward Heath, former British prime minister.
  2. A male given name.
  3. A village in Heath and Holmewood parish, North East Derbyshire district, Derbyshire, England (OS grid ref SK4466).
  4. A hamlet in Leintwardine parish, Herefordshire, England (OS grid ref SO3876).
  5. A hamlet in Abdon and Heath parish, Shropshire, England (OS grid ref SO5585).
  6. A suburb of Stourbridge, Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England (OS grid ref SO8983).
  7. A small village in Warmfield cum Heath parish, City of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England (OS grid ref SE3520).
  8. A suburb, a community and ward in the City of Cardiff, Wales (OS grid ref ST1780).
  9. Hampstead Heath, a park in London.
    • "But it must be better still outside, though. They say thousands of people are out in the parks and on the Heath watching it all."1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 13
  10. A town in Covington County, Alabama.
  11. An extinct town in Perry Township, Tippecanoe County, Indiana.
  12. A town in Franklin County, Massachusetts.
Show 5 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. A township in Allegan County, Michigan.
  2. An unincorporated community in Fergus County, Montana.
  3. A city in Licking County, Ohio.
  4. A township in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania.
  5. A city in Rockwall County and Kaufman County, Texas.

heath meaning in Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

heath in Bengali

ঊষর প্রান্তর, গুল্মবিশেষ

heath in Malayalam

ഒരിനം കുറ്റിച്ചെടികൾ, ചുള്ളിക്കാട്, തരിശുഭൂമി

heath in Kannada

ಕುರುಚಲು ಭೂಮಿ, ಬಂಜರು ಭೂಮಿ, ಕಟ್ಟಪ್ಪುಣಿ, ಬರಡು ಬಯಲು, ಬರಡು ನೆಲ

Examples of heath in a sentence

  • The first heath spotted-orchids have flowered, standing just proud of the turf.
  • We trod out across fragile alpine heath between poa tussocks and something that smelled of lemon thyme.
  • His psalms were sung to the tissing larch, his hymns to the purple heath.

All 16 example sentences with heath

Synonyms of heath

Forms of heath

Noun
pluralheaths
Proper noun
alternative formHaith

Plural of heath: heaths

Origin of heath

From Middle English heth, heeth, hethe, from Old English hǣþ (“heath, untilled land, waste; heather”), from Proto-West Germanic *haiþi, from Proto-Germanic *haiþī (“heath, waste, untilled land”), from Proto-Indo-European *kayt- (“forest, wasteland, pasture”). Cognate with Dutch heide (“heath, moorland”), German Heide (“heath, moor”), Norwegian hei (“heath”), Swedish hed (“heath, moorland”), Old Welsh coit (“forest”), Welsh coed (“forest”), Latin būcētum (“pastureland”, literally “cow-pasture”) -cetum (“place of, grove of”).

English surname, from the noun heath.

Words formed from heath

Phrases with heath

56 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with heath

Questions about heath

What does heath mean?
Heath means a tract of level uncultivated land with sandy soil and scrubby vegetation; heathland.
What is heath in Bengali?
Heath in Bengali is ঊষর প্রান্তর, গুল্মবিশেষ. See Heath meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is heath?
Heath can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce heath?
Heath is pronounced /hiːθ/.
What is the plural of heath?
The plural of heath is heaths.

Words near heath in the dictionary

  1. heaterless
  2. heaters
  3. heatest
  4. heateth
  5. heatful
  6. heath
  7. Heath and Holmewood
  8. Heath Charnock
  9. heath cock
  10. heath cocks
  11. Heath End

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: heath (page history and authors); Heath (page history and authors); heath (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); heath (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); heath (Kannada 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-heath.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-heath.wav.

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