Bocage - Etymology

Etymology

Bocage probably derives from the Norman French word boscage, from the Old French root bosc ("wood"), which today in place names is pronounced or . The boscage form was used in English for leafy decoration such as is found on eighteenth-century porcelain. Similar words occur in Scandinavian (cf. Swedish buskage) and other Germanic languages; the original root is thought to be the proto-German "bosk". The boscage form seems to have developed its meaning under the influence of eighteenth-century romanticism.

The bocage form of the word came to English notice during the Second World War. It refers to a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture, with fields and winding country lanes sunken between narrow low ridges and banks surmounted by tall thick hedgerows that break the wind but also limit visibility. It is the sort of landscape found in England in Devon. In Normandy, it acquired a particular significance during the Battle of Normandy, as it made progress against the German defenders difficult. American personnel usually referred to bocage as "hedgerows".

The 1934 Nouveau Petit Larousse defined bocage as 'a bosquet, a little wood, an agreeably shady wood' and a bosquet as a little wood, a clump of trees'. By 2006, the Petit Larousse definition had become '(Norman word) Region where the fields and meadows are enclosed by earth banks carrying hedges or rows of trees and where the habitation is generally dispersed in farms and hamlets.'