Also with hyphen, or (now rarely) as two words. [WHITE a. and THORN sb., alter L. alba spina (whence F. aubépine); so MHG. wîȥdorn (G. weissdorn).] The common hawthorn, Cratagus Oxyacantha: so called from the lighter color of its bark as compared with that of the BLACKTHORN.
In U.S. applied to C. coccinea, a species or variety with scarlet fruit.
c. 1265. Voc. Plants, in Wr.-Wülcker, 559/25. Bedagrage, i. spina alba, i. witþorn.
1382. Wyclif, Baruch vi. 70. A whijt thorn, vpon whiche eche bridde sittith.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. clxvi. (Bodl. MS.). Þese treen … haue prickes as a white þorne.
1523–34. Fitzherb., Husb., § 124. Gette thy quyckesettes in the woode-countreye, and let theym be of whyte-thorne and crabtree.
1637. Milton, Lycidas, 48. When first the White thorn blows.
1733. W. Ellis, Chiltern & Vale Farm., 150. To be more sure of a strong Fence, White-thorn may be made every second Plant.
1870. Morris, Earthly Par., III. II. 168. While round about the white-thorn shed Sweet fragrance.
1870. Kingsley, At Last, v. The Bauhinias, like tall and ancient whitethorns, which shade the road.
attrib. 1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 73. Matthiolus holdeth yt our haw tre or whyte thorne tre is Oxyacantha.
1733. Tull, Horse-Hoeing Husb., xvi. 243. White-Thorns will not prosper set in the Gaps of a White-Thorn Hedge.
1813. Ann. Reg., Chron., 74. He struck her so violently with a white-thorn stick … that she fell to the ground.
1827. Clare, Sheph. Cal., 45. Or short note of the changing thrush Above him in the white-thorn bush.
1842. Loudon, Suburban Hort., 105. The caterpillars of the white-thorn butterfly (Papilio cratægi) … had … stripped all the hedges.
1885. Pater, Marius, I. xix. 248. The torch of white-thorn-wood.
