berry

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See also: Berry

English

Baskets of various berries in the common sense. Only blueberries are berries in the botanical sense.
Collage of four berries in the botanical sense, not to the same scale: red gooseberries (left), red currants (top), a persimmon (bottom) and grapes (right).
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Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Middle English berye, from Old English beriġe, from Proto-Germanic *bazją.[1] 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.[2]

Noun

berry (plural berries)

  1. A small succulent fruit, of any one of many varieties.
  2. (botany) A soft fruit which develops from a single ovary and contains seeds not encased in pits.
  3. A coffee bean.
  4. One of the ova or eggs of a fish.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Travis to this entry?)
  5. (slang, US, African-American) A police car.
Usage notes

Many fruits commonly regarded as berries, such as strawberries and raspberries, are not berries in the botanical sense, while many fruits which are berries in the botanical sense are not regarded as berries in common parlance, for example bananas and pumpkins.

Derived terms
terms derived from "berry"

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Descendants
  • → Thai: เบอร์รี (bəə-rîi)
Translations
References
  1. ^ Marlies Philippa et al., eds., Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands, A-Z, s.v. “bes” (Amsterdam UP, 3 Dec. 2009) [1].
  2. ^ Jonathon Green (2018) “berry, n.1”, in Green's Dictionary of Slang‎[2]

Verb

berry (third-person singular simple present berries, present participle berrying, simple past and past participle berried)

  1. To pick berries.
    On summer days Grandma used to take us berrying, whether we wanted to go or not.
    • 1988, Early American Life, page 35:
      Partly because I always itched and prickled in a berry patch I may have been disinclined to nibble as I worked; but largely I think it was because I berried under a master strategist and I wanted to see how well we could coordinate our efforts...
  2. To bear or produce berries.
Usage notes
  • Unlikely to be used to refer to commercial harvesting of berries.
Derived terms

Etymology 2

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(deprecated template usage)

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English berȝe, berghe, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old English beorġe, dative form of beorg (“mountain, hill, mound, barrow”), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Germanic *bergaz (“mountain, hill”). More at barrow.

Alternative forms

Noun

berry (plural berries)

  1. (now chiefly dialectal) A mound; a barrow.

Etymology 3

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English bery (“a burrow”). More at burrow.

Noun

berry (plural berries)

  1. (dialectal) A burrow, especially a rabbit's burrow.
  2. An excavation; a military mine.

Etymology 4

From Middle English beryen, berien, from Old English *berian (found only in past participle ġebered (“crushed, kneaded, harassed, oppressed, vexed”)), from Proto-Germanic *barjaną (“to beat, hit”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“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).

Verb

berry (third-person singular simple present berries, present participle berrying, simple past and past participle berried)

  1. (transitive) To beat; give a beating to; thrash.
  2. (transitive) To thresh (grain).

Anagrams

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