blackberry

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See also: BlackBerry

English[edit]

Blackberries on a bush

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English blakberie, blakeberie (“brambleberry”), from Old English blacu berġe, blæcberġe (attested in plural blaca berġan, equivalent to black +‎ berry.

Pronunciation[edit]

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈblækbəɹi/, /ˈblækbɹi/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈblækbeɹi/
  • Audio (US)(file)

Noun[edit]

blackberry (plural blackberries)

  1. A fruit-bearing shrub of the aggregate species Rubus fruticosus and some hybrids.
    Synonyms: bramble, brambleberry
  2. The soft fruit borne by this shrub, formed of a black (when ripe) cluster of drupelets.
    Synonyms: bramble, brambleberry
  3. (UK, dialectal) The blackcurrant.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

blackcurrant — see blackcurrant

Verb[edit]

blackberry (third-person singular simple present blackberries, present participle blackberrying, simple past and past participle blackberried)

  1. To gather or forage for blackberries.
    • 1925, Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway:
      She had gone up into the tower alone and left them blackberrying in the sun
    • 1977, Howard Frank Mosher, Disappearances, Mariner Books (2006), →ISBN, page 111:
      My mother and Cordelia were blackberrying along the woods edge of a nearby meadow.
    • 1988, Arthur Bryson Gerrard, Butterflies & coalsmoke, page 62:
      Thereafter we blackberried unceasingly and returned with a large basketful, together with some maggoty windfall apples found neglected in the wet grass on the edge of an orchard and Mrs Clare duly stewed these for us.
    • 2001, Thomas Keneally, Victim of the Aurora, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2001), →ISBN, page 72:
      My wife and children were blackberrying at the end of the garden and I was simply reading.
    • 2004, Janet Bord, The Traveller's Guide to Fairy Sites: The Landscape and Folklore of Fairyland In England, Wales And Scotland, Gothic Image (2004), →ISBN, page 48:
      Another instance of someone who is blackberrying and sees fairies can be found at Kingheriot Farm (South-West Wales: Pembrokeshire): maybe gathering berries puts the percipient into a relaxed or dissociated frame of mind, more conducive to being able to see things that one would perhaps not normally be able to see.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Further reading[edit]

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