noun

• 1A large area covered chiefly with trees and undergrowth.

  ‘a pine forest’

  More example sentences

  • ‘a large tract of forest’
  • ‘Decades ago, these slopes were covered with forests, and the trees' root systems tied the soil to the hillsides.’
  • ‘Both ranges are soft from age but covered in brushy pine forests, knobby granite crags, and hiking and biking trails.’
  • ‘By contrast, the floor of pine forests was covered thinly by needles, and had much less absorptive capacity.’
  • ‘For three hours we snaked our way through soaring mountains covered in pine forests.’
  • ‘The area covered by tropical forests is disappearing at the rate of four Switzerlands every year.’
  • ‘Its forest covers an area half the size of Wales and supports a healthy population of wolves, moose and bears.’
  • ‘Canada's forests cover an area nearly three times the size of Europe.’
  • ‘Mixed forest also covers large areas of the island, but with a varied species composition.’
  • ‘North American brown bears prefer open areas interspersed with forests for sheltering cover while resting.’
  • ‘The mountain was mostly covered of a pine tree forest, and was the home of many species of birds.’
  • ‘Conservation areas and protected forests now cover about 54 million hectares, according to government data.’
  • ‘Three-quarters of the land is covered with forests and woodland, and much of the land is cultivated with rice paddies.’
  • ‘Everything from towering palm trees to pine forests inhabited the island's varied ecosystems.’
  • ‘The First half was made mostly of a dense forest, trees covering any view of the bottom.’
  • ‘The mountain is covered mainly by sub-tropical virgin forests of evergreen broadleaf trees.’
  • ‘As two thirds of Finland is covered by forests, it is hardly surprising that timber is the national building material.’
  • ‘The forests in New Hampshire covered 50 percent of the state in 1850 and cover 87 percent today.’
  • ‘The northern coniferous forest, or taiga, is filled with evergreens such as pine, fir, and spruce.’
  • ‘That explains why deciduous forest means a forest in which the leaves fall off the trees when the winter comes.’
  • ‘Your state forests are managed under the policy of multiple use in order to obtain benefits from recreation, timber production and watershed protection.’

  Synonyms

  wood, woods, woodland, trees, tree plantation, plantation

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1historical An area, typically owned by the sovereign and partly wooded, kept for hunting and having its own laws.
     ‘In medieval times the area was a hunting forest, roamed by deer, wild bear and wolves.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘For people in the countryside, new laws such as those governing access to game or forests could criminalize what had been everyday activity.’
     • ‘The New Forest is the most intact surviving example in England of a medieval hunting forest.’
     • ‘Sherwood Forest, a medieval royal hunting forest, is best known as the home of the outlaw Robin Hood.’
     Synonyms

     plantation, farm, holding

     View synonyms
  2. 1.2in place names Denoting an area that was formerly a royal forest.
     ‘Waltham Forest’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Those near Brendan Byrne State Forest and the Chatsworth area in Burlington County are particularly rich.’
     • ‘Areas affected included Flamborough, Scarborough, Malton, Withernsea, Middlesbrough and Sutton on the Forest.’
     • ‘Those facing ruin include Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and Queens Park Rangers.’
     • ‘It opens up land on Haworth Moor, Keighley and Oakworth moors, Ilkley Moor, Ickornshaw Moor and in the Forest of Bowland.’
     • ‘Golden oldie Joe Gordon made 78 as Cowling reached 195-6 at home to Pendle Forest.’
     • ‘Barnett was born on the 9 June 1912 at Wych Cross in the Ashdown Forest, and went to school in Tunbridge Wells.’
     • ‘Sunday Worship on 23 January 2005 comes from Beth Shalom in Newark, on the edge of Sherwood Forest.’
     • ‘Outlaw Girl of Sherwood Forest, Nancy Springer does just that.’

• 2A large number or dense mass of vertical or tangled objects.

  ‘a forest of high-rise apartments’

  More example sentences

  • ‘A Satguru does not embroil the seeker in the dense forest of words and hymns.’
  • ‘As I rise into a gentle current, the intact railings provide a skeleton for a dense forest of marine life.’
  • ‘Ahead we encountered a dense forest of steel beams half a metre wide and just over a metre apart.’
  • ‘We stopped near a small spring that gurgled its way through the dense forest of rocks.’
  • ‘A forest of hurls pulled, no one really connected and the ball squirted wide.’
  • ‘There, he enters the forest of his mind, delighting in the escape from everyday restrictions.’
  • ‘The travelers in transit march along, looking from a distance like a forest of bobbing backpacks.’
  • ‘Cities are already a forest of signs, but most of these signs are authorised texts; part of the official story of a city.’
  • ‘I'd really like to put my study first, but the lounge room is crying out for order amidst its forest of boxes.’
  • ‘With the ball pinballing amongst a forest of legs on the edge of the penalty box it fell to Bingham who dispatched a half volley low into the net.’
  • ‘We graduates today are still saplings in the forest of civilization, in the process of growing.’
  • ‘Just a small forest of black crosses, each labelled with the name of one of the 80 people who died trying to get out there.’
  • ‘A veritable forest of knock-off Awards have sprung up around and about I see.’
  • ‘Clearly, there does not need to be a forest of signs lecturing visitors about what they can and cannot do.’
  • ‘Whether looking at a slimy whale taste bud or a forest of pink jellyfish, there is no shortage of eye candy.’
  • ‘They do so because their market is hardly a market at all compared with the forest of For Sale signs which deface Britain.’
  • ‘But their efforts became lost amid a forest of faintly unconvincing football motions.’
  • ‘Now is the time to turn your desktop into a veritable forest of eye-candy.’
  • ‘The substitute kept his shot low and it found its way through a forest of legs and into the bottom right corner.’
  • ‘Heavy industrial plants belched clouds of smoke from a forest of chimneys.’