The AI-powered English dictionary
plural spinneys
(UK) A small copse or wood, especially one planted as a shelter for game birds. quotations examples
“H'm !" he said, "so, so — it is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what [...] will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough. It was last Saturday […] that two boys, playing in the little spinney just outside Wembley Park Station, came across three large parcels done up in American cloth. […]”
1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Lisson Grove Mystery
I've never hunted myself, but I understand that half the battle is being able to make noises like some jungle animal with dyspepsia, and I believe that Aunt Dahlia in her prime could lift fellow-members of the Quorn and Pytchley out of their saddles with a single yip, though separated from them by two ploughed fields and a spinney.
1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins
Freda, the German undermatron, once discovered him sunbathing nude in the spinney.
1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, page 23
Clipping of spinnaker. examples