Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. See euonymus.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A European shrub or small tree, Euonymus Europæa (E. vulgaris), growing in hedge-rows, on borders of woods, etc. It is so called from the use of its hard fine-grained wood in making spindles, and other uses have given it the names prick-timber, skewer-wood, and pegwood. It is one of the dogwoods. The name is carried over to the American E. atropurpurea, the wahoo or burning-bush, and to the Japanese E. Japonica; it is also extended to the genus, and even to the order (Celastrineæ).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) any shrub or tree of the genus Eunymus. The wood of E. Europæus was used for spindles and skewers. See Prickwood.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any shrubby trees or woody vines of the genus Euonymus having showy usually reddish berries
Etymologies
- So called because the wood is often used to make spindles. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The curious thing is that we often encounter solitary trees: a single elder by the track, a spindle tree and its bright pink berries, a lone rope of traveller’s joy hoisted over a hazel bush.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spindle tree’.
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Rognons of Random Palavery
Another of my random palavery lists for terms and phrases that don't fit into any of my other lists.
priorship, exigeant, refectory, reestablish, capper, reesed, quar, reprune, orificial, reaming-iron, terminist, terminism and 3097 more...
Tweets
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