brier

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Sweet-brier is at home in New England pastures and roadsides.

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Definitions (15)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun Any of several prickly plants, such as certain rosebushes or the greenbrier.
  2. noun Variant of briar1.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (7)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (5)

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Examples (50)

  • You git ter de sweetgum,' sezee, 'en den you go up de branch twel you come ter a little patch er bamboo brier--but de grapes ain't dar. —  Nights With Uncle Remus
  • She was like the wild sweet-brier roses which crowded alluvial strips of the island, fragrant and pink and bristling. —  The Black Feather From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899
  • Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine: Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine, Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state, Makes me with thy strength to communicate 175 If aught possess thee from me, it is dross, Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss; Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion Ant. —  The Comedy of Errors The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.]
  • Dearly loved had these brier-roses or dog-roses been in England, where, says the old herbalist, Gerard, "children with delight make chains and pretty gewgawes of the fruit; and cookes and gentlewomen make tarts and suchlike dishes for pleasure thereof." —  Home Life in Colonial Days
  • Sweet-brier is at home in New England pastures and roadsides. —  Home Life in Colonial Days
 

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English brer, from Old English brēr.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. English dial. and Scots breer; from Middle English brere, from Anglo-Saxon brēr, also brǣr, a brier, bramble; cf. Icelandic brörr, a brier (rare and uncertain). Cf. Irish Gael, preas, a bush, brier (Irish briar, a brier, also a thorn, pin, bodkin, is prob. borrowed from English). The F. bruyère, dial. brière (earlier bruyere, briere = Catalan bruguera = Italian dial. brughiera (Middle Latin bruarium, bruera), heath, heather, prob. from Provencal bru = Italian dial. brug = Swiss bruch, heath; of Celtic origin: from Breton brug, heath, = Welsh brwg, a brake, growth), is not related. The reg. modern English form would be breer, which exists dialectally; cf. friar, earlier frier, from Middle English frere.
 

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/ˈbraɪər/
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