Blackberry Meaning
/ˈblækbəɹi/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA fruit-bearing shrub of the aggregate species Rubus fruticosus and some hybrids.
nounThe soft fruit borne by this shrub, formed of a black (when ripe) cluster of drupelets.
Sentence Examples
Why don't we make a blackberry cake?
The tayberry is a cultivated cross between a blackberry and a raspberry.
The property was almost completely overgrown with wild blackberry bushes.
CEFR Practice Quiz
She picked a ripe ____ from the bush and ate it quickly.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I picked a juicy and sweet ____ from the bush and ate it immediately.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree Old English blæcberġe Middle English blakberie English blackberry From Middle English blakberie, blakeberie (“brambleberry”), from Old English blacu berġe, blæcberġe (attested in plural blaca berġan, equivalent to black + berry.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Here at the creek, a ways off from the trail, we have blackberries for now, not as fat and sweet as they get, but I like them tart, with that little bit of red still at their tops, or if they’re just a little hard and not so soft they come off when you pull at them and leave your fingers stained."
— 2024, Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars, Harvill Secker, page 79:
"She had gone up into the tower alone and left them blackberrying in the sun"
— 1925, Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway:
"My mother and Cordelia were blackberrying along the woods edge of a nearby meadow."
— 1977, Howard Frank Mosher, Disappearances, Mariner Books, published 2006, →ISBN, page 111:
"Thereafter we blackberried unceasingly and returned with a large basketful, together with some maggoty windfall apples found neglected in the wet grass on the edge of an orchard and Mrs Clare duly stewed these for us."
— 1988, Arthur Bryson Gerrard, Butterflies & coalsmoke, page 62:
"My wife and children were blackberrying at the end of the garden and I was simply reading."
— 2001, Thomas Keneally, Victim of the Aurora, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, published 2001, →ISBN, page 72:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She picked a ripe ____ from the bush and ate it quickly.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I picked a juicy and sweet ____ from the bush and ate it immediately.