Also (5 blabery), 6 ble-, 9 blea-, blay-, bleeaberry. [f. BLAE + BERRY: in ON. bláber, Sw. blåbär, Du. blaabær.]
1. The common name in Scotland and the north of England of the BILBERRY or whortleberry (Vaccinium Myrtillus). Applied to fruit and plant.
[1483. Cath. Angl., 33. A Blabery.]
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. Lj. Takyng the bleberries or hurtel berries.
a. 1758. Ramsay, Poems (1800), II. 107 (Jam.). Gif I could find blaeberries ripe for thee.
1822. Bewick, Mem., 256. The creeping groundlings, the blea-berry, the wild strawberry, the harebell.
1861. Geikie, in Gd. Words, Feb., 76/1. Yonder pastoral glens, where we boys were wont to gather blaeberries and junipers.
1862. Cornh. Mag., V. 457. Branches loaded with the tiny purple blae berry, the bloom yet fresh on them.
2. Also applied to cognate species.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xix. (1856), 143. Here I saw the bleaberry (vaccinium uliginosum) in flower and in fruit.
1861. Miss Pratt, Flower. Pl., III. 353.
