Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An evergreen Californian shrub (Heteromeles arbutifolia), having leathery leaves, small white flowers in large panicles, and red, fleshy, berrylike fruit. Also called Christmas berry.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The Californian holly, Hetero-meles arbutifolia. Also tollon.
Wiktionary
- n. a chiefly Californian ornamental evergreen shrub (Heteromeles arbutifolia) of the rose family having white flowers succeeded by red berries
WordNet 3.0
- n. ornamental evergreen treelike shrub of the Pacific coast of the United States having large white flowers and red berrylike fruits; often placed in genus Photinia
Etymologies
- Spanish tollón. (Wiktionary)
- Spanish tollon, from Greek tolon. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Mexicans were born here, among the smoky bouquets of the toyon shrub, made love on hills of elderberry, honeysuckle, and fistfuls of lilac fiesta flowers, married each other by a ring of deodar cedars, grew old walking the long, open fields of sage scrub and giant wild rye, and died in ancient forests of pine and eucalyptus.”
“A ginko, and a California buckeye, to begin with, and in the back a bigleaf maple, a fig, and a toyon.”
“I had seen nothing on his face or clothes under that toyon tree to suggest a fight, or past fights.”
“He was hanging from a low branch of a native toyon tree in Alameda Park, between an Australian red eucalyptus and a Canary Island palm.”
“All lower branches had been cut from the toyon tree, leaving protrusions long enough for a determined person to get a foothold and climb the tree.”
“I found a trash receptacle under the red eucalyptus, rolled it to the toyon, upended it, held onto the tree, and climbed on top.”
“Luckily, there are four windows, also sort of quirky and irregular, and there are nice views out of all of them -- a toyon tree from one, a view of the bay (and the Richmond refinery, and the mountains in Marin) from another, an oak tree from a third, and some kind of pine, but also a yellow plum from the fourth.”
“A little bank that runs from the wickiup to the toyon bushes is covered with white forget-me-nots.”
“When you hear the medicine rattles, stand off by the toyon.”
“At the back rise high and barren cliffs where eagles nest; at the foot of the cliffs runs a stream, hidden by willow and buckthorn and toyon.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘toyon’.
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berry neat
very nice enticing, berrilicious words
bearberry, sugarberry, jamberry, checkerberry, foxberry, farkleberry, spiceberry, inkberry, crowberry, wolfberry, thimbleberry, aleberry and 69 more...
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Freerice
katabatic, cozen, depurate, entelechy, torrefy, talion, spatchcock, springhalt, poleyn, syncope, leister, palladium and 51 more...
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Christmas
carol, yule, noel, nowel, yuletide, melampodium, toyon, wassail, pantomime, simnel, epiphany, luminaria and 37 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for toyon.
fbharjo Christmasberry Dec 20, 2009