shrub

shrub¹ woody plant

Etymology

The plant word is inherited from Middle English schrubbe, also schrobbe and shrobbe,^[2][3] inherited from Old English sċrybb (“brushwood, shrubbery, underwood”),^{[4][5][6][7][8]} a rare word that the OED finds only once.^[4][8] The OED suggests a parallel Old English form *scrubb without umlaut,^[4] and Wiktionary an Old English *sċrob in place names;^[1] Etymonline thinks the word may survive in the name Shrewsbury.^[5] It is a doublet of scrub.^[1][4][8] The OED and Hoad compare North Frisian skrobb (“broom, brushwood”), West Flemish schrobbe (“climbing wild pea, vetch”), Norwegian skrubba (“dwarf cornel”) and dialectal Danish skrub (“brushwood”), which point to a general sense "rough plant".^[4][8][5] Etymonline suggests a Scandinavian source,^[5] and Watkins, cited by Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary, derives it from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kerb-, an extension of *sker- (“to cut”).^[5][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A woody plant smaller than a tree: the OED's first example is an Old English charter printed in Birch's Cartularium Saxonicum,^[4] which Barnhart dates to 972.^[6] Barnhart finds the Middle English word probably before 1387.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The botanical sense, a perennial plant with several woody stems from one root, has been the main one throughout.^[4][2] In the 16th and 17th centuries shrub could also mean a twig or sprout (about 1530 to 1647) and, like scrub, a mean or worthless person (1566 to 1690).^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as a bush or small tree, quoting Locke on the difference between shrubs and trees.^[10] The Century Dictionary, quoted by Etymonline, called the line between trees and shrubs largely arbitrary.^[5] A verb shrub, partly a form of scrub and partly from the noun, meant to grub up bushes or to lop trees in the 16th and 17th centuries,^[4][7] and later to plant with shrubs (1885).^[4] The derivative shrubbery appears in 1748, and shrubby in 1581.^[6]

Timeline

• 972 – scrybb, brushwood, shrubbery.^[6][4]
• before 1387 – Middle English shrubbe.^[6]
• c. 1530 – a twig or sprout (obsolete by 1647).^[4]
• 1553 – verb, to grub up bushes.^[4]
• 1566 – a mean, insignificant person (obsolete by 1690).^[4]
• 1581 – shrubby.^[6]
• 1748 – shrubbery, a plot of shrubs.^[6]
• 1885 – verb, passive, to be planted with shrubs.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A woody perennial plant smaller than a tree, usually with several stems growing from near the base; a bush: They planted flowering shrubs along the fence.^[11][2][4]

Verb

1. To plant with shrubs.^[2][4]
2. To clear ground of shrubs, or to lop a tree (now chiefly US dialect).^[2][7]

Word family

• shrubbery
• shrubby
• shrubless
• shrublike
• shrubland
• semishrubby
• subshrub
• undershrub

shrub² fruit and spirit drink

Etymology

The word for the drink is a borrowing from an Arabic noun meaning a drink or draught,^{[4][3][9][12]} with the consonants rearranged, or else it is a variant of shrab, from Arabic شَرَاب (šarāb, “drink”).^{[4][12][13][7]} Both Arabic words are from شَرِبَ (šariba, “to drink”),^[3][9][8][1] as are sherbet and syrup.^{[4][13][7][3]}

Earliest recorded meaning

A drink made with orange or lemon juice, sugar and rum or another spirit: Merriam-Webster dates it to about 1706,^[2] while the OED's first example is Moxon's English Housewifry (1743)^[4] and Dictionary.com gives 1740–50.^[14]

Semantic evolution

In the United States from 1861, in Oliver Wendell Holmes, shrub was also a cordial or syrup of raspberry juice, vinegar and sugar.^[4][7] Merriam-Webster describes the spirit drink as aged in crockery, glass or wood, strained and served iced with water or soda, as in rum shrub.^[2][12]

Timeline

• c. 1706 – a drink of fruit juice, sugar and spirit.^[2] The OED's first example is from 1743.^[4]
• 1861 – US, a raspberry cordial with vinegar.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A drink of fruit juice, sugar and a spirit, especially rum, often diluted with water.^[11][2][4]
2. (US) A cordial of raspberry or other fruit juice with vinegar and sugar.^[2][4][7]