Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A woody plant of relatively low height, having several stems arising from the base and lacking a single trunk; a bush.
- n. A beverage made from fruit juice, sugar, and a liquor such as rum or brandy.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A woody plant with stems branched from or near the ground, and, in general, smaller than a tree; a bush, or woody vine. The line which divides trees from shrubs is to a large extent arbitrary, and is often very unsatisfactory in application, but in general the name shrub may be applied to a woody plant of less size than a tree, with several permanent woody stems dividing from the bottom, more slender and lower than in a tree. The line between shrub and herb is also indistinct, as many herbaceous plants are more or less woody. For practical purposes shrubs are divided into the deciduous and evergreen kinds. There are many very ornamental flowering shrubs, among the best-known of which are those belonging to the genera Rosa, Rhododendron, Kalmia, Viburnum, Philadelphus, Vaccinium. Among evergreen shrubs are the box and various heaths. Compare tree, herb.
- n. Synonyms Bush, Herb, etc. See vegetable, n.
- To prune down so that a shrubby form shall be preserved.
- To reduce (a person) to poverty by winning his whole stock: a word used at play.
- n. A drink or cordial prepared from the juice of fruit and various other ingredients. A drink made by boiling currant-juice about ten minutes with an equal weight of sugar, and adding a little rum: it is also made with other fruits, and sometimes with brandy.
- n. A cordial or syrup consisting of the acid juice of some fruit, as the raspberry, cooked with sugar and vinegar, and diluted with water when used.
- An obsolete form of scrub.
- To clear land of small growth by cutting it off at the ground.
Wiktionary
- n. A woody plant smaller than a tree, and usually with several stems from the same base.
- v. obsolete To lop; to prune.
- n. A liquor composed of vegetable acid, fruit juice (especially lemon), sugar, sometimes vinegar, and a small amount of spirit as a preservative. Modern shrub is usually non-alcoholic, but in earlier times it was often mixed with a substantial amount of spirit such as brandy or rum, thus making it a liqueur.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A liquor composed of vegetable acid, especially lemon juice, and sugar, with spirit to preserve it.
- n. (Bot.) A woody plant of less size than a tree, and usually with several stems from the same root.
- v. obsolete To lop; to prune.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a low woody perennial plant usually having several major stems
Etymologies
- From Arabic شراب (shiraab, "a drink, beverage"), شرب (sháriba, "to drink"), akin to sirup, sherbet (Wiktionary)
- Middle English schrubbe, from Old English scrybb; see sker-1 in Indo-European roots.From Arabic šurb, a drink, from šariba, to drink; see śrb in Semitic roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Things are so bad for bushlandia over the Miers thing that the shrub is appealing to some puke senators that if they dont toe the line on Miers, HIS PRESIDENCY IS AT STAKE.”
“Use: This tropical shrub is originally from India but is widely cultivated for its beautiful, long-lasting flowers.”
Crossandra, mango and jellybean plant: ornamental plants and flowers of tropical Mexico
“Use: Related to the frangipani but more drought tolerant, this small shrub is evergreen.”
Desert rose, dracaena and pothos: ornamental plants and flowers of tropical Mexico
“Tamarisk, a Eurasian shrub, is your classic invasive species — designated one of America's "least wanted" plants by the National Parks Service.”
“The pink shrub is the evergreen azalea ‘Girard Rose.’”
“The yellow shrub is the deciduous azalea ‘Northern Lights.’”
“FYI — ‘David Austin’ will grow up to 8′ tall and wide, although some judicious pruning can keep it in shrub form.”
‘Graham Thomas’ voted world’s favorite rose « Sugar Creek Gardens’ Blog
“It contained the important fact that the shrub is named after a Revd Adam Buddle.”
“Shrub » Variegated shrub is facing a green attack says:”
Think Progress » Bush Works For Lasting Peace In The Middle East
“The shrub is trying to go there, and you are helping him ...”
Sound Politics: P-I's Connelly: GOP's Conrad Burns An Enabler for Bush-Hitler
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘shrub’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
wrath, leaf, belly, prey, death, break, six, nod, dim, end, inn, judge and 1286 more...
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Your Mother
Joyess
cramp, crumble, cringe, slope, fling, prone, freckle, plank, frock, tramp, slump, crotch rot and 36 more...
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ChortleGiggleSnort
Significant Words- Guiding you on your path to Snazzibility
flimsy, feeble, ranting, ramble, narky, snazzy, yoghurt, bulbous, pustule, globulous, geranium, megalomaniac and 521 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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Words I like
This is a list of my favourite words (phrases) in english, as a second language. I love them mostly because of how they sound and their meaning.
ninja, cookie, skill, zip, plentiful, digg, debris, pancake, cucumber, fetch, pot, backpack and 461 more...
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cutting words
sarcasm, sarx, sarcoptic, syssarcosis, shrew, shrewd, screed, scred, shroud, scroll, scrod, scrutiny and 326 more...
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Words of the Times
Words discovered while reading The New York Times, each with a citation from the paper.
testilying, ghost talk, apneist, solastalgia, izakaya, hooker, telectroscope, airflyte, phomance, bromhidrosis, stinky feet, cupping and 482 more...
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Palabrarium
The delicious wonderful words that I love terribly dearly and without which, the world would be a less inventive and worthwhile place. Also, ostensibly, the reason 1984 and esperanto secretly suck.
panoply, footpad, piccalilli, snickersnee, marl, hispid, greengage, slumgullion, golliwog, mumbletypeg, circumlocution, quiescent and 366 more...
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exquisite's Words
trust, melancholic, uncharacteristically, pule, idioglossia, incandescence, ephemeral, zine, despondent, shrub, incandescent, lepidoptera and 37 more...
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The Anonymous Borrower's Words
Words from the English translation of Italo Calvino's Baron in the Trees found underlined, in blue biro, by a previous reader of the Vancouver Public Library's copy of the Calvino collection entitl...
sentinel, mane, shod, rapier, tricorne, elm, carob, mulberry, shrub, waft, wren, gaiters and 49 more...
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spookymilk's Words
eleemosynary, rataplan, aspirant, scatalogical, harlequin, choleric, fisticuffs, aenima, antagonistic, hurlyburly, ramshackle, clandestine and 28 more...
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Enchanted Tree - Ran
Tweets
Looking for tweets for shrub.

john “The Romans diluted acetified wine with water to make an everyday thirst quencher called posca, and vinegar has been touted as a cure-all in Asia and Europe for centuries. The practice was brought to the Colonies from England, where it was commonly referred to as shrub, a term confusingly used both for a nonalcoholic drink and for one mixed with rum. In the United States, shrub seems to have thrived particularly in the South, gaining enormous popularity with the temperance movement. Many Southerners still fondly remember a grandmother making up ‘raspberry vinegar’ in the summer.�?
The New York Times, Dropping Acid, by Toby Cecchini, November 11, 2008 Nov 12, 2008