burning bush

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of several shrubs or shrubby plants, such as the summer cypress and certain species of euonymous, having foliage that turns bright red in autumn.
2. n. See gas plant.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The emblem adopted by the Presbyterian churches of Scotland in memory of the persecutions of the seventeenth century, and bearing the legend “Nec tamen consumebatur” (yet not consumed), in allusion to Ex. iii. 2.
2. n. A name of various shrubs or plants. The American species of Euonymus, E. atropurpurea and E. Americana, celastraceous shrubs with bright-crimson, pendulous, four-lobed capsules, often cultivated for ornament. See Euonymus. The artillery-plant, Pilea serpylli-folia. The plant Dictamnus Fraxinella, so called because its volatile secretions render the surrounding air inflammable in hot weather.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. (Bot.) an ornamental shrub (Euonymus atropurpureus), bearing a crimson berry.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. densely branched Eurasian plant; foliage turns purple-red in autumn
2. n. deciduous shrub having purple capsules enclosing scarlet seeds
3. n. Eurasian perennial herb with white flowers that emit flammable vapor in hot weather
4. n. (Old Testament) the bush that burned without being consumed and from which God spoke to Moses