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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
birch
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a pine/beech/birch etc forest
▪ A narrow path led through the pine forest.
silver birch
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
silver
▪ The gravel track led downhill into a narrow belt of silver birch and rowan.
▪ I rubbed a patch clear and looked out hopefully; saw stone walls, the vague shapes of silver birch and larch.
▪ Conifers had suffered the most damage, while oak and silver birch were also badly affected.
▪ The under storey was planted with hornbeam, hazel, silver birch and holly.
▪ The trees along here include silver birch, yew and holly.
▪ It continues as an usual inland resort set in woodland of silver birches, rhododendrons and conifers.
white
▪ These barn sills enclose thick white birch, ash, and maple trees.
▪ The white birch, beech, and red and sugar maples were not far behind in the race for light.
■ NOUN
tree
▪ An imperceptible breeze forced the leaves of a regiment of birch trees into anxious quaking.
▪ Last week, the tree swallow pair abandoned its nest box in the old birch tree in front of my window.
▪ Clare could see more rusty chain around the slender, peeling, silver trunk of a nearby birch tree.
▪ The river birch trees spread their silvery shade over the slate walkways.
▪ The birch tree outside is only just beginning to look green, but at least it is, I suppose.
▪ I try to hold on to a slender low branch of a birch tree.
▪ One birch tree lay newly fallen, clean with silver bark.
▪ It is a fairly sparse forest mostly of birch trees on a light, sandy soil.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
weeping willow/birch etc
▪ When she reached the bushes, Geoffrey was spreading his jacket on the grass between the stream and a weeping willow.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ All I remember is the wrenching loss as l watched the last birch disappear. l have relived it again and again.
▪ An imperceptible breeze forced the leaves of a regiment of birch trees into anxious quaking.
▪ Clare could see more rusty chain around the slender, peeling, silver trunk of a nearby birch tree.
▪ Dark pines and yellow birches lay ahead, as the shoreline curved to meet me.
▪ I walked through hardwood forest of very thick sugar maples and yellow birches.
▪ I wish to heavens I was still allowed to use the birch and belt as I did in the good old days!
▪ The birch leaves were delicately pale, almost lemon-colored.
▪ These barn sills enclose thick white birch, ash, and maple trees.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Birch

Birch \Birch\ (b[~e]rch), n.; pl. Birches (-[e^]z). [OE. birche, birk, AS. birce, beorc; akin to Icel. bj["o]rk, Sw. bj["o]rk, Dan. birk, D. berk, OHG. piricha, MHG. birche, birke, G. birke, Russ. bereza, Pol. brzoza, Serv. breza, Skr. bh[=u]rja. [root]254. Cf. 1st Birk.]

  1. A tree of several species, constituting the genus Betula; as, the white or common birch ( Betula alba) (also called silver birch and lady birch); the dwarf birch ( Betula glandulosa); the paper or canoe birch ( Betula papyracea); the yellow birch ( Betula lutea); the black or cherry birch ( Betula lenta).

  2. The wood or timber of the birch.

  3. A birch twig or birch twigs, used for flogging.

    Note: The twigs of the common European birch (B. alba), being tough and slender, were formerly much used for rods in schools. They were also made into brooms.

    The threatening twigs of birch.
    --Shak.

  4. A birch-bark canoe. Birch of Jamaica, a species ( Bursera gummifera) of turpentine tree. Birch partridge. (Zo["o]l.) See Ruffed grouse. Birch wine, wine made of the spring sap of the birch. Oil of birch.

    1. An oil obtained from the bark of the common European birch ( Betula alba), and used in the preparation of genuine (and sometimes of the imitation) Russia leather, to which it gives its peculiar odor.

    2. An oil prepared from the black birch ( Betula lenta), said to be identical with the oil of wintergreen, for which it is largely sold.

Birch

Birch \Birch\, a. Of or pertaining to the birch; birchen.

Birch

Birch \Birch\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Birched (b[~e]rcht); p. pr. & vb. n. Birching.] To whip with a birch rod or twig; to flog.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
birch

Old English berc, beorc (also the name of the rune for "b"), from Proto-Germanic *berkjon (cognates: Old Saxon birka, Old Norse börk, Danish birk, Swedish björk, Middle Dutch berke, Dutch berk, Old High German birihha, German Birke), from PIE *bhergo (cognates: Ossetian barz, Old Church Slavonic breza, Russian bereza, Lithuanian beržas, Sanskrit bhurjah, Latin farnus, fraxinus "mountain ash"), from root *bhereg- "to gleam, white." Meaning "bunch of birch twigs used for flogging" (1640s) led to verb meaning "to flog" (1830). Related: Birched; birching. Birch beer is by 1827, American English.

Wiktionary
birch

n. 1 Any of various trees of the genus ''Betula'', native to countries in the Northern Hemisphere. 2 A hard wood taken from the birch tree, typically used to make furniture. 3 A stick, rod or bundle of twigs made from birch wood, used for punishment. 4 A birch-bark canoe. vb. 1 to punish with a stick, bundle of twigs, or rod made of birch wood. 2 to punish as though one were using a stick, bundle of twigs, or rod made of birch wood.

WordNet
birch
  1. n. hard close-grained wood of any of various birch trees; used especially in furniture and interior finishes and plywood

  2. any betulaceous tree or shrub of the genus Betula having a thin peeling bark [syn: birch tree]

  3. bundle of birch twigs used to hit people as punishment [syn: birch rod]

birch

adj. consisting of or made of wood of the birch tree [syn: birchen, birken]

birch

v. whip with a birch twig

Gazetteer
Wikipedia
BIRCH

BIRCH (balanced iterative reducing and clustering using hierarchies) is an unsupervised data mining algorithm used to perform hierarchical clustering over particularly large data-sets. An advantage of BIRCH is its ability to incrementally and dynamically cluster incoming, multi-dimensional metric data points in an attempt to produce the best quality clustering for a given set of resources (memory and time constraints). In most cases, BIRCH only requires a single scan of the database.

Its inventors claim BIRCH to be the "first clustering algorithm proposed in the database area to handle 'noise' (data points that are not part of the underlying pattern) effectively", beating DBSCAN by two months. The algorithm received the SIGMOD 10 year test of time award in 2006.

Birch (disambiguation)

Birch is the common name for trees of the genus Betula.

Birch or Birchs may also refer to:

  • BIRCH, a clustering algorithm
  • "Birches" (poem), a poem by Robert Frost
  • Birch (surname)
Birch (surname)

Birch is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

  • A. A. Birch, Jr.
  • Adam Birch
  • Andreas Birch
  • Arthur John Birch (1915–1995), Australian chemist
  • Arthur Nonus Birch, Lieutenant-Governor of Ceylon
  • Bill Birch (born 1934), New Zealand politician
  • Bob Birch
  • Bryan Birch, British mathematician
  • Charles Birch, in full Louis Charles Birch (1918–2009), Australian geneticist, theologian and author
  • Charles Bell Birch (1832–1893), English sculptor
  • Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer
  • Christian Birch-Reichenwald
  • Prof De Burgh Birch FRSE (1852-1937), English physiologist and author
  • Diane Birch, musician
  • Edmund Birch
  • Elizabeth Birch
  • Eugenius Birch
  • Francis Birch (cryptographer) (1889–1956), British cryptographer and actor
  • Francis Birch (geophysicist) (1903–1992), American geophysicist
  • Gary Birch footballer
  • Gina Birch
  • Glynn Birch
  • James W.W. Birch
  • Jeff Birch (born 1927), English professional footballer
  • John Birch (disambiguation)
  • Lamorna Birch
  • Margaret Birch
  • Martin Birch
  • Patricia Birch
  • Paul Birch (disambiguation), various
  • Penny Birch, pseudonym
  • Percy Birch, English footballer
  • Peter Birch-Reichenwald
  • Raymond Birch
  • Ric Birch
  • Robert H. Birch, American western outlaw
  • Rosalie Birch
  • Ryan Birch (1969–2013), British judoka
  • Samuel Birch
  • Simon Birch
  • Stanley F. Birch Jr.
  • Thomas Birch
  • Thora Birch
  • Wallace Birch, footballer
  • Walter de Gray Birch (1842-1924), historian
  • William Birch (footballer), footballer

Fictional characters:

  • Edna Birch
  • Eve Birch
  • Peter Birch (Emmerdale)
  • Professor Birch, a character from the Pokémon series

Usage examples of "birch".

Laying aside the first branch, Nysander passed the birch switch through the flame and water and struck Alec lightly on his cheeks, shoulders, chest, thighs, and feet, then snapped the stick in two.

The skin was broken nowhere, but here and there, particularly at sensitive places near the shadowy crease which separated the globes one could see dark splotches and stigmata as evidences that the birching had been rather severe.

She failed by five, and was sentenced to a birthday birching which Maude herself applied whilst Alice was, still blind folded, undressed down to camisole and elegant black silk hose with purple rosette garters and tied with her arms in cross and her thighs widely yawned apart in the middle of the room, cords fixing to wrists and ankles being fixed at their other ends in turn to hooks set into the cellar wall.

Alice had sentenced her to a sound birching on the bare, to smarten up this diffident pupil.

You deserve a sound birching, Miss Ashton, and you are going to receive it.

Her name is Charlene Davidson, and she has been wanting a sound birching for quite some time now.

Her violent contortions over the tabouret, needless to say, showed off the most secret parts of her nubile young body in the most lascivious way, and Maude righteously exhorted Charlene to take her birching humbly and not be such an indecent minx, advice which poor Charlene could not have heeded at this point, much less count off the strokes.

As for you, my girl, if I hear from either of my nieces that you have been indiscreet enough to repeat a word of what has been said here in this room tonight, you shall repent it over the birching horse before the entire school.

Julianne had told him once, seeing how the birken tree was another name for the birch, which stood for the first month of the druidic calendar of the trees and represented a time of beginning and cleansing.

The bridegroom whispered to a friend of his whom he dearly loved, to fetch a big handful of birch rods, and hide them secretly under the bed, and this the other did.

While she waited for them to plump up and absorb more of the water, she stripped away the outer bark of a birch tree, scraped off some of the soft, sweet, edible cambium layer underneath, and added it to her root-starch-and-berry mixture.

Then she took small handfuls of the doughy root starch, mixed with the berries, the sweet, flavorful licorice-fern root stalk, and the sweetening and thickening sap from the birch cambium, and dropped them on the hot rocks.

She started their herb tea steeping, adding some birch cambium for the wintergreen flavor, then took the pine cones out of the edge of the fire.

At his inner elbow, tanned skin curdled like birch bark in a fire, split and broke and bled and itched abominably.

When she had opportunity, she could use any weapon from the ferula birch switch to the flagrum whip of stiff, rough oxhide.