Forms: 1 beriae, berie, beriȝe, berʓe, 26 berie, 36 bery(e, (4 burie), 67 berrie, 6 berry. [Found, with some variety of form, in all the Teutonic langs.: with OE. bęrie wk. fem., cf. ON. ber (Da. bær, Sw. bär), OS. beri (in wîn-beri), MDu. bēre, OHG. beri str. neut., MHG. ber and bere neut. and fem., mod.Ger. beere fem. These point to an OGer. *bazjo-m, as a by-form of *basjo-m, whence Goth. basi neut. (in weina-basi grape). The s type is also preserved in MDu. beze, mod.Du. bes, also MDu. and mod.Du. bezie fem. The fem. forms Du. bēzie and OE. berie answer to an OTeut. extended form *basjôn-, *bazjôn-. The ulterior history is uncertain: *bazjo- has been conjecturally referred to *bazo-z BARE (q.v.), as if a bare or uncovered fruit, also to the root represented by Skr. bhas- to eat.]
1. Any small globular, or ovate juicy fruit, not having a stone; in OE. chiefly applied to the grape; in mod. popular use, embracing the gooseberry, raspberry, bilberry, and their congeners, as well as the strawberry, mulberry, fruit of the elder, rowan-tree, cornel, honey-suckle, buckthorn, privet, holly, mistletoe, ivy, yew, crowberry, barberry, bearberry, potato, nightshade, bryony, laurel, mezereon, and many exotic shrubs; also sometimes the bird-cherry or hag-berry (which is a stone-fruit), the haw, and hip of the rose; spec. in Scotland and north of England, it means the gooseberry.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Deut. xxiii. 24. Gif tu gange binnan þines freondes wineard, et þæra berʓena.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., III. 114. Nym winberian þe beoþ acende æfter oþre beriʓian.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 276. Breres bereð rosen & berien.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 2062. [A win-tre] blomede, and siðen bar ðe beries ripe.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Prol., 207. His palfrey was as broune as is a bery.
1387. Trevisa, Higden, Rolls Ser. IV. 121. Þe juse of grapes and of buries [mori].
147085. Malory, Arthur, XVI. x. (Globe), 385. A strong black horse, blacker than a bery.
a. 1500. Songs & Carols 15th C., 85. Ivy berith berys black.
1590. Shaks., Mid. N., III. ii. 211. Two louely berries molded on one stem.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 307. For dinner savourie fruits Berrie or Grape.
1793. Southey, Lyric Poems, II. 149. The clusterd berries bright Amid the hollys gay green leaves.
1842. Tennyson, Œnone, 100. Garlanding the gnarled boughs With bunch and berry and flower.
1883. Birmingh. Daily Post, 8 Aug., 3/7. Last year the heaviest berry shown scaled 31dwt.
b. loosely. A coffee bean.
1712. Pope, Rape Lock, III. 106. The berries crackle, and the mill turns round.
2. Bot. A many-seeded inferior pulpy fruit, the seeds of which are, when mature, scattered through the pulp; called also bacca. In this sense, many of the fruits popularly so called, are not berries: the grape, gooseberry and currants, the bilberry, mistletoe berry, and potato fruit, are true berries; but, botanically, the name also includes the cucumber, gourd, and even the orange and lemon.
1809. Sir J. Smith, Bot., 284. The simple many-seeded berries of the Vine, Gooseberry, &c. The Orange and Lemon are true Berries, with a thick coat.
1880. Gray, Bot. Text-bk., vii. § 2. 299. The Berry comprises all simple fruits in which the pericarp is fleshy throughout.
3. One of the eggs in the roe of a fish; also, the eggs of a lobster. A hen lobster carrying her eggs is said to be in berry or berried.
1768. Travis, in Penny Cycl., II. 513/2. Hen lobsters are found in berry at all times of the year.
1876. Pall Mall Gaz., 7 Nov., 10/1. A large specimen [of lobster] will yield from five to eight ounces of berry.
4. Comb. and Attrib., as berry-bush, -pie, -tree; berry-bearing, -brown, -like, -shaped adjs.; Berry alder, Berry-bearing alder, a shrub (Rhamnus frangula) = Alder Buckthorn; berry-button, a berry-shaped button.
1863. Prior, Plant-n., 20. *Berry-alder, a buckthorn distinguished from them [the alders] by bearing berries.
1785. Cowper, Task, V. 82. *Berry-bearing thorns That feed the thrush.
1611. Art Venerie, 96. He seemed fayre tweene blacke and *berrie brounde.
1820. Scott, Abbot, xvi. The Friars of Fail drank *berry-brown ale. Ibid. (1818), Rob Roy, vi. Pleased wi the freedom o the *berry-bushes.
1702. Lond. Gaz., No. 3783/4. A Stuff Wastcoat with black and red *Berry-Buttons.
1864. Monthly Even. Readings, May, 161. *Berry-like galls are formed on the peduncles or flower-stalks, bearing the sterile flowers.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. c. (1495), 666. The fruyte of the wilde *bery tree.
18369. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., II. 485/2. *Berry-shaped corpuscles seem to be appended.