cherry
/ˈt͡ʃɛɹi/ noun, adjective, verb, proper noun
Forms cherries cherrier cherriest cherrying cherried
- noun A small fruit, usually red, black or yellow, with a smooth hard seed and a short hard stem.
- noun Prunus subg. Cerasus, trees or shrubs that bear cherries.
- noun The wood of a cherry tree.
- noun Cherry red.
- noun The fruit of the coffee plant, containing the seeds or beans.
- noun (slang) Virginity, especially female virginity as embodied by a hymen.
- noun (graph theory) A subtree consisting of a node with exactly two leaves.
- noun (cricket, slang) A red cricket ball.
- adjective Containing or having the taste of cherries.
- adjective Of a bright red color; cherry red.
- adjective (informal, often of cars) In excellent condition; mint condition.
- verb (transitive, dated, obsolete) To redden; to infuse a cherrylike color to something.
- verb (transitive, dated, obsolete) To cheer, to delight.
- proper noun A female given name from English, a pet form of Charity, also interpreted as a flower name.
- proper noun A surname.
- proper noun A ghost town in Yavapai County, Arizona.
- proper noun A village in Bureau County, Illinois.
- proper noun A township and unincorporated community therein, in Saint Louis County, Minnesota.
- proper noun Two townships in Pennsylvania, in Butler County and Sullivan County.
- proper noun An unincorporated community in Lauderdale County, Tennessee.
Synonyms
cherrytop cherry tree cerise cherry red red reddish ruddy blood-red carmine cherry-red crimson ruby ruby-red scarlet
Etymology
From Middle English chery, cherie, chirie, from Anglo-Norman cherise (mistaken as a plural) and Old English ċiris, ċirse (“cherry”), from Proto-West Germanic *kirsijā, from Vulgar Latin ceresia, derived from Late Latin ceresium, cerasium, from Ancient Greek κεράσιον (kerásion, “cherry fruit”), from κερασός (kerasós, “bird cherry”), and ultimately possibly of Anatolian origin (the intervocalic σ suggests a pre-Greek origin for the word). Doublet of cerise, Giresun, and kirsch.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A tree or shrub of the genus Prunus (Which also includes the plum) bearing a fleshy drupe with a bony stone; (a) The common garden cherry (Prunus Cerasus), of which several hundred varieties are cultivated for the fruit, some of which are, the begarreau, blackheart, black Tartarian, oxheart, morelle or morello, May-duke (corrupted from Médoc in France). (b) The wild cherry; as, prunus serotina (wild black cherry), valued for its timber; P. Virginiana (choke cherry), an American shrub which bears astringent fruit; P. avium and P. Padus, European trees (bird cherry).
- noun The fruit of the cherry tree, a drupe of various colors and flavors.
- adjective Like a red cherry in color; ruddy; blooming; as, a cherry lip; cherry cheeks.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “cherry”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details