Etymologically
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shrub

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Pronunciation

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]

Usage notes

Since 2006 the OED records an East African verb shrub, to pronounce a language in a way influenced by one's mother tongue, and a noun for a word so pronounced; their origin is unknown.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  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 c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  12. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House