Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various wild fruit-bearing shrubs or trees, such as a dogwood, gooseberry, or mountain ash.
- noun The fruit of any of these plants.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The berry of the dogwood, Cornus sanguinea.
- noun In Nova Scotia, the mountain-ash, Pyrus Americana.
- noun Ribes Cynosbati. See
wild *gooseberry , 1.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) The berry of the dogwood; -- called also
dogcherry . - noun (Bot.) the dogwood.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun botany The
berry of thedogwood .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word dogberry.
Examples
-
Both banks were packed with huckleberry, dogberry, ground juniper, and alders, with plenty of brambles behind them.
Stillwater William F. Weld 2002
-
Both banks were packed with huckleberry, dogberry, ground juniper, and alders, with plenty of brambles behind them.
Stillwater William F. Weld 2002
-
Both banks were packed with huckleberry, dogberry, ground juniper, and alders, with plenty of brambles behind them.
Stillwater William F. Weld 2002
-
Blood will tell, so the hoarhound joined forces with the dogberry and chased the catnip up my family tree.
You Should Worry Says John Henry Hugh McHugh
-
Then Peaches, being a student of natural history, insisted that I take some hoarhound, I suppose to bite the dogberry, but it didn't.
You Should Worry Says John Henry Hugh McHugh
-
To make matters worse I drank some dogberry cordial and it chased the catnip tea all over my concourse.
You Should Worry Says John Henry Hugh McHugh
-
In the evening, as they entered a little thicket of dogberry bushes growing in low land, a small brown shadow flitted across their path.
The Outcasts William Alexander Fraser 1896
-
For pains in the stomach, a decoction of the rind of the dogberry was drank.
Lecture on the Aborigines of Newfoundland Delivered Before the Mechanics' Institute, at St. John's, Newfoundland, on Monday, 17th January, 1859 Joseph Noad 1860
-
Its sides were wild, abrupt, and precipitous, and partially covered with copse-wood, as was the little brawling stream which ran through it, and of which the eye of the spectator could only catch occasional glimpses from among the hazel, dogberry, and white thorn, with which it was here and there covered.
The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain The Works of William Carleton, Volume One William Carleton 1831
-
This abuse may be discovered by opening the berries: those of buckthorn have almost always four seeds; of the alder, two; and of the dogberry, only one.
A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons Exhibiting the Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer, Wine, Spiritous Liquors, Tea, Coffee, Cream, Confectionery, Vinegar, Mustard, Pepper, Cheese, Olive Oil, Pickles, and Other Articles Employed in Domestic Economy Friedrich Christian Accum 1803
yarb commented on the word dogberry
But the clerk sprang to his feet and, thrusting his pen behind his ear as if he were shouldering arms, said in a loud consequential voice: "Ay, I sent a messenger along to your residence the same time I 'phoned up to the Head Office to hev' the patient put on the danger list! Everything possible is done in the way of consideration for the feelings of friends and relations!" Yes, this was a hospital, and of course people sometimes died in hospitals. But she pushed away that fact and set her eyes steadily on the clerk's face, her mind on the words he had just spoken, and nearly laughed aloud to see that here was that happy and comic thing a Dogberry, a simple soul who gilds employment in some mean and tedious capacity by conceiving it as a position of power over great issues.
- Rebecca West, The Judge
July 29, 2009
yarb commented on the word dogberry
After a character in Much Ado About Nothing.
July 29, 2009
AnWulf commented on the word dogberry
dogberry – an ignorant, self-important official
(From the name of a foolish constable in Shakespeare's "Much Ado about Nothing".)
April 10, 2013