Plantation, Preserve, Shag: Origins, Forms, Histories of Words Meaning Woodland

The natural features of a region are its topography. The word comes from Greek topos ("place").

One important type of topographic feature is woodland. Woods of various kinds and sizes, as well as related natural and human-made features, have many different names.

In the current alphabetic series of such terms, here are the origins, forms, and histories of plantation, preserve, and shag.

Plantation
Plantation entered English in the 15th century from Latin plantation-, a combining form of plantatio, from plantatus, the past participle of plantare ("to plant").

The original, now archaic, meaning of plantation is the act or process of planting (c. 1450). A large group of plants of any kind under cultivation is a plantation (1569). Historically, an American farm or estate on which cotton, tobacco, or other crops were cultivated by slave labor was a plantation (1706).

In modern use, plantation particularly denotes a wood of planted trees (1669).

Preserve
The noun preserve emerged in the 16th century from the verb preserve, which goes back through Middle French preserver and Medieval Latin praeservare to Late Latin praeservare ("to observe beforehand"), from prae- ("before") and servare ("to keep, guard, observe").

The original, now obsolete, meaning of preserve is any kind of preservative or preserving agent (1552). The most familiar use of the word refers to fruit that is treated (as by cooking in a syrup) so as to keep it (1600).

The word also has a topographic sense: an area restricted for the protection and preservation of natural resources, such as trees and animals, especially one used for regulated hunting and fishing, is a preserve (1807).

Shag
Modern English shag (17th century) comes from (assumed) Middle English shagge, from Old English sceacga (before 12th century). The word is akin to Old Norse skegg ("beard") and skaga ("to project").

Shag has an unusual history. Except for one appearance in a gloss of c. 1050, the word is not found before the late 1500s. Therefore, the Middle English form of shagge is assumed rather than recorded.

The original meanings of shag are rough matted wool or hair (c. 1050, 1601), a tangled mass of matted hair (1607), and a kind of cloth with a nap (1592).

Those senses led to the topographic meaning of shag: a tangled or matted mass of trees and/or bushes, that is, a thicket (1836).
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Ready Reference 2004. CD-ROM. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2006.

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2007.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.