[f. OE. bęre BEAR sb.2 + bindan to bind, from winding round and binding the stalks. In an 11th-century list of plants, berwinde is the gloss for umbilicum. Cf. also OE. wuduwinde, wudubind, WOODBINE.] A popular name applied to two English species of convolvulus, the Lesser Field Convolvulus, and the large white convolvulus of the hedges; also to a species of Polygonum (P. Convolvulus), to which it is most appropriate.
[c. 1000. in Wülcker, Voc., 300. Umbilicum, berwinde.]
1732. De Foe, etc., Tour Gt. Brit. (1748), III. 242 (D.). Small and soft, not unlike the Roots of Asparagus or of Bearbind.
1755. Croker, Orl. Fur., XXV. lxix. Entwining bearbind dont more knots unite.
1830. Hood, Haunted House, I. xxiv. The bearbine with the lilac interlaced.
