greenery

Etymology

It is formed from English green + -ery,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from either the adjective or the noun green.^[2][4] Green is from Old English grēne.^[3] The rare adjective greenery, greenish, is perhaps a humorous alteration of greeny, partly after greenery-yallery.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A place where plants are grown or displayed: 1783, in G. W. Lemon's English Etymology.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the word to 1783 too;^[5] Etymonline gives 1797 for green plants or foliage and 1836 for the place where plants are reared.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The OED's first quotation for green foliage or vegetation is Coleridge's Kubla Khan (1816), and Mary Shelley's The Last Man (1826) has it for green branches or leaves used as decoration.^[2] The sense "a place where plants are grown" was the first recorded,^[2][3] but foliage is now the main meaning.^[7][5] In the 1980s, following the political sense of green, greenery was used for environmentalist politics or support for a green party (1983).^[2] In American Black slang of the 1940s it meant money.^[8]

Timeline

• 1783 – a place where plants are cultivated or displayed.^[2][5]
• 1816 – green foliage or vegetation, in Coleridge.^[2]
• 1826 – green branches or leaves used as decoration.^[2]
• 1896 – adjective, greenish (now rare).^[2]
• 1945 – slang, money.^[8]
• 1983 – environmentalist politics or activism.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Green foliage or plants; verdure: the greenery along the riverbank.^[7][5][2]
2. Green leaves and branches used as decoration.^[7][5][2]
3. A place where plants are grown or displayed, such as a greenhouse.^[2][4]
4. Environmentalist politics or activism.^[2]

Related words

• green

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com