English

Verb

go bush ‎(third-person singular simple present goes bush, present participle going bush, simple past went bush, past participle gone bush)

1. (Australia, New Zealand) To abandon one's normal surroundings and live in the bush; to flee into the bush; to revert to a feral nature
   • 2016, The New Zealand Herald, 24 March, 2016

     Taika Waititi and Sam Neill talk about going bush in the director’s latest childhood adventure, The Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

   • 2015, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, news headline,

     Groote riot: Police fear those responsible for deaths may have gone bush and be difficult to locate

   • 2006, Regina Ganter, Mixed Relations: Asian-Aboriginal Contact in Northern Australia, University of Western Australia Press, p. 175,

     Kitty was now living at Pan Quee's station in Humpty Doo with her Aboriginal husband Lukana and her father Yuliera. During the war they had all gone bush so as to avoid compulsory evacuation.

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, Chapter VIII, p. 125,

     I can't come to you. I'm too weak to ride. I'd have to ride, because for one thing the white-ants have eaten the wheels of my buckboard, and my one cart-horse has gone bush with the brumbies.