pleach
UK/pliːtʃ//plit͡ʃ/
pleach verb: to unite by interweaving, as (horticulture) branches of shrubs, trees, etc., to create a hedge; to interlock, to plash.
Verb
pleach (third-person singular simple present pleaches, present participle pleaching, simple past and past participle pleached)
- To unite by interweaving, as (horticulture) branches of shrubs, trees, etc., to create a hedge; to interlock, to plash.
- Her Vine, the merry chearer of the heart, / Vnpruned, dyes: her Hedges euen pleach'd, / Like Priſoners wildly ouer-growne with hayre, / Put forth diſorder'd Twigs: [...]1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- Nectar ran / In courteous fountains to all cups outreach'd; / And plunder'd vines, teeming exhaustless, pleach'd / New growth about each shell and pendent lyre; [...]1818, John Keats, “Book III”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] T[homas] Miller, […] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 149, lines 932–935
Noun
pleach (plural pleaches)
- An act or result of interweaving; specifically, (horticulture) a hedge or lattice created by interweaving the branches of shrubs, trees, etc.
- Not a dryad of the beeches, / Through the filmy forest-reaches, / That a tress of summer pleaches, / But had owned her queen; [...]1859, Leander Clark, “Elesta”, in Kenridge Hall, and Other Poems, Washington, D.C.: Published by Franklin Philp; Tho[ma]s McGill, printer, →OCLC, stanza 2, page 6
- Synonyms:
- plash
- A branch of a shrub, tree, etc., used for pleaching; a pleacher.
- These stems should be stripped (or nearly so) of their branches, and notched at the bottom (in the way which every hedger knows) to form a pleach: these pleaches should be laid in the intervals along the line of the stubs, and again notched, [...]1821, Francis Blaikie, “Cutting of Hedges Continued”, in A Treatise on the Management of Hedges, and Hedge-row Timber, new edition, London: Printed [by Mowlett and Brimmer] for John Harding, […]...
- The pleaches are laid over all in the same direction and stakes are driven in so as to come alternately behind and in front of the stems laid over, but the ends of the pleaches are made to finish all on one side, that is to say, on the opposite side of the hedge to the notches. [...] The hedger...1934, T[homas] Hennell, “Hedges and Ditches”, in Change in the Farm, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: At the University Press, →OCLC; 2nd edition, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: At the University Press, 1936...
- A notch cut into a branch so that it can be bent when pleaching is carried out.
- Traditional hedge laying involves, first, clearing away undergrowth and weeds, particularly from a hedge that has been neglected and allowed to grow tall. Untidy side branches are removed. A cut, known as a pleach, is made in the back of the trunk, leaving a 'hinge'; old-time hedgers recommend that...2007, Holly Kerr Forsyth, “Hedges”, in The Constant Gardener: A Botanical Bible, Carlton, Vic.: The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Publishing, →ISBN, page 221
- When laying hedges, notches (pleaches) are cut in branches that are to be bent (the bent bits must go upwards, otherwise the sap will not run).2009, Tony Atkins, “Unrestrained and Restrained Workplaces: Dynamic Cutting”, in The Science and Engineering of Cutting: The Mechanics and Processes of Separating, Scratching and Puncturing...
pleach meaning in Urdu
pleach in Urdu
- بل دینا, لپیٹنا, مروڑنا
Examples of pleach in a sentence
- The season in which to pleach is not when the hedge is growing, but in the fall, between the falling of the leaves and the time when winter sets in.1868, “Osage Hedges”, in Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1868, Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office...
- [I]n Messina, he pleaches Leonato's bower with honeysuckle; [...]1878 September 21, “How Their Gardens Grow in North America”, in Charles Dickens, Jr., editor, All the Year Round, A Weekly Journal. [...]...
- A cut, known as a pleach, is made in the back of the trunk, leaving a 'hinge'; old-time hedgers recommend that this should be as thick as a lamb's tongue.2007, Holly Kerr Forsyth, “Hedges”, in The Constant Gardener: A Botanical Bible, Carlton, Vic.: The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University...
Synonyms of pleach
Forms of pleach
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | pleaches |
| present participle | pleaching |
| past participle | pleached |
| past | pleached |
| Noun | |
| plural | pleaches |
Origin of pleach
The verb is from Late Middle English pleshe, Middle English plechen, pleche (“to layer; to propagate (a plant) by layering, to pleach”), possibly from Anglo-Norman and Middle French plesser, plessier, Middle French plescer, variants of Middle French, Old French plaissier, plessier (“to plash”), from Late Latin *plaxus, from Latin plexus (“braided, plaited, woven; bent, twisted”), perfect passive participle of plectō (“to braid, plait, weave; to bend, turn, twist”). The noun is derived from the verb.
Words formed from pleach
Words that rhyme with pleach
Questions about pleach
- What does pleach mean?
- Pleach means to unite by interweaving, as (horticulture) branches of shrubs, trees, etc., to create a hedge; to interlock, to plash.
- What is pleach in Urdu?
- Pleach in Urdu is بل دینا, لپیٹنا, مروڑنا. See Pleach meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use pleach in a sentence?
- The season in which to pleach is not when the hedge is growing, but in the fall, between the falling of the leaves and the time when winter sets in.
- What part of speech is pleach?
- Pleach can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce pleach?
- Pleach is pronounced /pliːtʃ/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of pleach?
- The past tense of pleach is pleached.
Words near pleach in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pleach (page history and authors); pleach (Urdu 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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-pleach.ogg.
Cite this entry: “pleach.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pleach. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.