BOSCAGE

Coming home from Chillicothe  I noticed a small wooded section and I wondered aloud, "Do you think that's a copse?" Gerald asked, "What's the difference between a copse and a woods?" I said, "I'll have to look it up--I think a woods is bigger."  

I continued: "Maybe it's a coppice or a spinney."

Gerald said he'd never heard those two words.  I said that I would have to look up the difference between copse, woods, grove, coppice, and spinney.

 Gerald said, "Maybe it's thicket." I said, "I think thicket suggests brambles."

I began to recite:

"Whose copse this is I think I know,
His house is in the village though,
My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near."

I said, "Nah, woods sounds much better than copse; my apology to Robert Frost!"

When we arrived home I told my brother about the discussion.  He said, "Maybe it's a boscage."  I answered, "Now knowing THAT word is just showing-off!"

What I saw was a COPSE:  "a small group of trees";  not a SPINNEY:  "a small area of trees and bushes";  not a WOODS:  "an area of land, smaller than a forest, that is covered with growing trees"; not a THICKET:  "a dense group of bushes or trees";  it was definitely not a COPPICE:  "an area in which the trees or shrubs are, or formerly were, periodically cut back to ground level to stimulate growth and provide timber or lumber".

As I kept reciting definitions, Les screamed, "TMI!  TMI!"