Category:Heath

Heath, n. Etym: [OE. heth waste land, the plant heath, AS. h; akin to D. & G. heide, Icel. hei waste land, Dan. hede, Sw. hed, Goth. haipi field, L. bucetum a cow pasture; cf. W. coed a wood, Skr. ksh field. sq. root20.]

1. (Bot.) (a) A low shrub (Erica, or Calluna, vulgaris), with minute evergreen leaves, and handsome clusters of pink flowers. It is used in Great Britain for brooms, thatch, beds for the poor, and for heating ovens. It is also called heather, and ling. (b) Also, any species of the genus Erica, of which several are European, and many more are South African, some of great beauty. See Illust. of Heather.

2. A place overgrown with heath; any cheerless tract of country overgrown with shrubs or coarse herbage. Their stately growth, though bare, Stands on the blasted heath. Milton. Heath cock (Zoöl.), the blackcock. See Heath grouse (below). -- Heath grass (Bot.), a kind of perennial grass, of the genus Triodia (T. decumbens), growing on dry heaths. -- Heath grouse, or Heath game (Zoöl.), a European grouse (Tetrao tetrix), which inhabits heats; -- called also black game, black grouse, heath poult, heath fowl, moor fowl. The male is called, heath cock, and blackcock; the female, heath hen, and gray hen. -- Heath hen. (Zoöl.) See Heath grouse (above). -- Heath pea (bot.), a species of bitter vetch (Lathyris macrorhizus), the tubers of which are eaten, and in Scotland are used to flavor whisky. -- Heath throstle (Zoöl.), a European thrush which frequents heaths; the ring ouzel.

---excerpt from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary

Heath - Heb. 'arar, (Jeremiah 17:6; Jeremiah 48:6), a species of juniper called by the Arabs by the same name ( 'arar ), the Juniperus sabina or savin. "Its gloomy, stunted appearance, with its scale-like leaves pressed close to its gnarled stem, and cropped close by the wild goats, as it clings to the rocks about Petra, gives great force to the contrast suggested by the prophet, between him that trusteth in man, needy and destitute, and the man that trusteth in the Lord, flourishing as a tree planted by the waters" (Tristram, Natural History of the Bible).