hackberry

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various trees or shrubs of the genus Celtis, having inconspicuous flowers and small, usually ovoid drupes.
2. n. The fruit of such a plant.
3. n. The soft yellowish wood of these trees or shrubs.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Same as hagberry. Also called bird-cherry.
2. n. An American tree, Celtis occidentalis, natural order Urticaceæ, allied to the elm. It ranges from Canada to Florida and west to Texas, but is most typical and abundant in the Mississippi valley. It has a number of well-marked forms, some of which were formerly regarded as distinct species, but they are found to be connected by intermediate ones. That of western Texas, however, is regarded as a variety (reticulata). The hackberry sometimes becomes a large tree 4 or 5 feet in diameter and 80 or 100 feet high. The wood is white and soft, but heavy, coarse-grained, and not durable; it is used in the manufacture of cheap furniture, but chiefly as fence-timber. The fruit is an edible drupe, of sweetish taste and light-red color, the size of a bird-cherry. Also called nettle-tree, hoop-ash, false elm, beaverwood, many-berry, and sugarberry.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any of several small shrubs or trees of the genus Celtis, having small fruit.
2. n. The purple-black fruit of such plants.
3. n. The soft wood of such plants.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A genus of trees (Celtis) related to the elm, but bearing drupes with scanty, but often edible, pulp. Celtis occidentalis is common in the Eastern United States.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of various trees of the genus Celtis having inconspicuous flowers and small berrylike fruits
2. n. small edible dark purple to black berry with large pits; southern United States