bushel
/ˈbʊʃ(ə)l
/(abbreviation bu.)
noun
1British A measure of capacity equal to 8 gallons (equivalent to 36.4 litres), used for corn, fruit, liquids, etc.
2US A measure of capacity equal to 64 US pints (equivalent to 35.2 litres), used for dry goods.Agronomist Roger Elmore, Ph.D., and his colleagues calculated those losses equal to about 3 bushels per acre....
- The 1798 daybook also shows that, as the old Dutch traditions faded, wheat was measured in bushels rather than schepels.
- New acres coming into production equal more potential bushels, which equal more subsidy dollars.
Phrases
hide one's light under a bushel
Derivatives
bushelful
/ noun (plural bushelfuls) ...- And someone had tried the same thing with putting sand into bushelfuls of wheat just the previous autumn.
- I'll remember Horace as a true original, unhybridized, a bushelful of contradictions: stubborn but sentimental, steely and twinkly, old-school formal but startlingly earthy.
- Michelle has been known to eat fresh peas by the proverbial bushelful.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French boissel, perhaps of Gaulish origin.
If a bushel is a measure of capacity, how can you hide your light under a bushel? The answer is that the word here is used in an old sense, ‘a container used to measure out a bushel’. The origin of the phrase is biblical, from the Gospel of Matthew: ‘Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light to all that are in the house.’ The word entered English from French and may be Gaulish.