bough

Etymology

PIE word *bʰeh₂ǵʰús ) in Mount Field National Park, Tasmania, Australia.]] From Middle English bough (“branch of a bush or tree, especially a main branch; limb of an animal or person; something resembling a branch (such as a plant root or branch of a nerve); (figuratively) Christian cross; descendant, offspring”) [and other forms], from Old English bōg, bōh (“tree bough or branch; arm; shoulder”), from Proto-West Germanic *bōgu, from Proto-Germanic *bōguz (“shoulder; upper arm”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵʰús (“arm”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Bouch, West Frisian boech, Dutch boeg, German Low German Boog, German Bug, Danish bov, Icelandic bógur, and distantly with Ancient Greek πῆχυς (pêkhus, “forearm, cubit, etc.”). Doublet of bow ("front of a ship, prow").

noun

1. A tree-branch, usually a primary one directly attached to the trunk.
   When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. (Rock-a-bye Baby)
   [T]he creature [a Wagler's viper (Tropidolaemus wagleri)] is arboreal and feeds on birds. This extremely agile prey it is able to capture with ease, because it has developed a prehensile tail whereby it is able to take a secure grip of a bough, leaving the rest of the body free to be instantly uncoiled as the fatal dart on the victim is made. The green colour of the young snake is a protective garment, enabling it to lie concealed among the smaller green boughs. Later, with increased bulk, older and therefore black boughs have to bear the weight of the body, against which a green body would be somewhat conspicuous, or would at any rate excite suspicion. 1913, W[illiam] P[lane] Pycraft, “Reptilian Liveries”, in The Infancy of Animals, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, pages 173–174
   A pair of birds settle on the bough above them, murmuring together, ready to roost. 2013, J[ohn] M[axwell] Coetzee, chapter 18, in The Childhood of Jesus, Melbourne, Vic.: The Text Publishing Company, page 172
   Desperate to stop before hurling herself off the edge of the cliff, she grabbed for a nearby tree branch, but the spindly bough snapped off in her hands. 2018, Katie Ruggle, Through the Fire
2. (obsolete, figurative, poetic) A gallows.
   It was vſed of auncient time in Gauelkind land, & hath receiued the allowance and iudgement of a good and lawfull cuſtome, that if the huſband be attainted and executed for a felonie by him committed, yet ſhall his wife for the ſolace of her loſſe and deſolation haue her dowrie of his land, and alſo the heire ſhall inherite the ſame according to that olde ſaying: The father to the bough, & the ſonne to the plough, […] 1584, A Breefe Discourse, Declaring and Approuing the Necessarie and Inuiolable Maintenance of the Laudable Customes of London:[…], London: […] Henrie Midleton for Rafe Newberie, →OCLC, pages 26–27