berry
/ˈbɛɹi/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms berries berrying berried berye berie
- noun A small succulent fruit, of any one of many varieties.
- noun (botany) A soft fruit which develops from a single ovary and contains seeds not encased in pits.
- noun A coffee bean.
- noun One of the ova or eggs of a fish or crustacean.
- noun (slang, US, African-American) A police car.
- noun (US, slang, dated) A dollar.
- verb (intransitive) To pick berries. “On summer days Grandma used to take us berrying, whether we wanted to go or not.”
- verb To bear or produce berries.
- noun (now chiefly dialectal) A mound; a barrow.
- noun (dialectal) A burrow, especially a rabbit's burrow.
- noun An excavation; a military mine.
- verb (transitive) To beat; give a beating to; thrash.
- verb (transitive) To thresh (grain).
- proper noun A surname from Middle English.
- proper noun A male given name transferred from the surname.
- proper noun A town in Fayette County, Alabama, United States, named after Thompson Berry.
- proper noun A minor city in Harrison County, Kentucky, United States.
- proper noun A town in Dane County, Wisconsin, United States.
- proper noun A municipality in Abitibi Regional County Municipality, Quebec, Canada.
- proper noun A village in the City of Shoalhaven, New South Wales, Australia, named after Alexander Berry.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English berie, from Old English berġe, from Proto-West Germanic *baʀi, from Proto-Germanic *bazją.
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Bäie, West Flemish beier, German Beere, Icelandic ber, Danish bær.
The slang sense "police car" may come from the lights on the vehicles' roofs.
From Middle English berȝe, berghe, from Old English beorġe, dative form of beorg (“mountain, hill, mound, barrow”), from Proto-West Germanic *berg, from Proto-Germanic *bergaz (“mountain, hill”). More at barrow.
Cognate with Scots burrow (“mound, tumulus, barrow”), North Frisian Bārig, beerch, beeri, beerj, berag, berig, berri, bärj (“mountain”), Saterland Frisian Bierich, Bíerig, Bäirch (“mountain”), West Frisian berch (“mountain”), Cimbrian pèrge (“mountain”), Dutch berg (“mountain”), German Berg (“mountain”), German Low German Barg (“mountain”), Limburgish berg, Bärrech (“hill, mountain”), Luxembourgish Bierg (“mountain”), Mòcheno pèrg (“mountain”), Yiddish באַרג (barg, “mountain”), Danish bjerg (“mountain”), Faroese berg, bjarg (“cliff”), bjørg (“cliffs”), Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish berg (“mountain”); also Northern Luri برگ (berg, “mountain”), Polish brzeg (“bank, shore”), Russian бе́рег (béreg, “bank, shore”).
From Middle English bery (“a burrow”). More at burrow.
From Middle English beryen, berien, from Old English *berian (found only in past participle ġebered (“crushed, kneaded, harassed, oppressed, vexed”)), from Proto-West Germanic *barjan, from Proto-Germanic *barjaną (“to beat, hit”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“to rip, cut, split, grate”).
Cognate with Scots berry, barry (“to thresh, thrash”), German beren (“to beat, knead”), Icelandic berja (“to beat”), Latin feriō (“strike, hit”, verb).
Webster’s 1913
- noun Any small fleshy fruit, as the strawberry, mulberry, huckleberry, etc.
- noun A small fruit that is pulpy or succulent throughout, having seeds loosely imbedded in the pulp, as the currant, grape, blueberry.
- verb To bear or produce berries.
- noun A mound; a hillock. W. Browne.
Etymology [OE. berie, AS. berie, berige; akin to D. bes, G. beere, OS. and OHG. beri, Icel. ber, Sw. bär, Goth. basi, and perh. Skr. bhas to eat.]
Etymology [AS. beorh. See Barrow a hill.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “berry”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details