Etymologically
Log in

blackberry

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 26 October 2026 at 03:21. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈblækbəɹi/, /ˈblækbɹi/[1]
  • US: /ˈblækbɛɹi/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English blakberie,[2][3] inherited from Old English blæcberie,[2][4] a compound from Old English blæc (“black”) + berie (“berry”), the ancestors of black and berry;[5][6][2][7] the fruit is so called for its colour.[6] In Old English the first element was still inflected as an ordinary adjective.[5] The OED compares Old High German suarzbere (“bilberry”), probably also the fruit of the bramble, and regional German Schwarzbeere.[5] Old English also called the fruit bremelberie, from bramble.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fruit of the bramble: the OED's first record is in the Old English Lacnunga;[5][7] Bosworth–Toller glosses the Old English word "blackberry, mulberry", for Latin vaccinium and morus.[4] Etymonline dates the word to the early 12th century.[6]

Semantic evolution

From late Old English the name was also given to other dark edible berries; in northern English and Scots it could mean the blackcurrant or the bilberry,[5][7] and in Caithness the crowberry.[8] The bramble plant itself has been called blackberry since about 1550.[5][7] Shakespeare's as plentiful as blackberries (1598), for something very common, is now rare.[5][7] Johnson (1755) quoted Troilus and Cressida for something "not proved worth a blackberry".[9] The verb blackberry, to gather blackberries, is recorded from 1801 (Merriam-Webster)[2] or 1877 (OED), after the earlier noun blackberrying;[5] the Shorter Oxford dates blackberrying to the late 18th century.[7] Since 1999 BlackBerry has been the trade name of a pager or smartphone,[5][6][10] and the verb has also meant to send messages with one.[5] English dialects had compounds such as blackberry summer, a spell of fine weather, and blackberry-moucher, a boy who played truant to gather blackberries.[8] In American slang blackberry was a derogatory word for a black person, from 1859.[11]

Timeline

  • Old English – the fruit of the bramble.[5][7]
  • late Old English – other dark berries, such as the blackcurrant.[5]
  • c. 1550 – the bramble plant.[5]
  • 1598 – as plentiful as blackberries, in Shakespeare.[5]
  • 1801 – verb, to pick blackberries.[2]
  • 1999 – BlackBerry, a pager or smartphone.[5][6]
  • 2000 – to use a BlackBerry device.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The black or dark purple edible fruit of the bramble, made up of many small drupelets: We picked blackberries along the lane for a pie.[10][2][5]
  2. The thorny plant that bears this fruit, of the genus Rubus.[10][2][5]
  3. BlackBerry (trademark) A brand of smartphone.[10][5]

Verb

  1. To gather blackberries, usually as blackberrying: The children went blackberrying after school.[2][5]

Word family

  • blackberrylike
  • blackberry lily

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  11. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com