Grove (O.E. graf, cf. O.E. græfa, brushwood, later “greave”; the word does not appear in any other Teutonic language, and the New English Dictionary finds no Indo-European root to which it can be referred; Skeat considers it connected with “grave,” to cut, and finds the original meaning to be a glade cut through a wood), a small group or cluster of trees, growing naturally and forming something smaller than a wood, or planted in particular shapes or for particular purposes, in a park, &c. Groves have been connected with religious worship from the earliest times, and in many parts of India every village has its sacred group of trees. For the connexion of religion with sacred groves see Tree-Worship.
The word “grove” was used by the authors of the Authorized Version of the Bible to translate two Hebrew words: (1) ’ēshel, as in Gen. xxi. 33, and 1 Sam. xxii. 6; this is rightly given in the Revised Version as “tamarisk”; (2) asherah in many places throughout the Old Testament. Here the translators followed the Septuagint ἄλσος and the Vulgate lucus. The ’ăshéráh was a wooden post erected at the Canaanitish places of worship, and also by the altars of Yahweh. It may have represented a tree.
