blackberry

blackberry — noun

1. A small, round, soft fruit with a deep purple-black skin made up of many tiny sh

1.nounA2
Definition

A small, round, soft fruit with a deep purple-black skin made up of many tiny shiny bumps. Blackberries grow on thorny bushes in hedges and woods, and people use them in pies, jam, and crumbles.

Example

Sophie picked a handful of ripe blackberries from the hedge near the old stone wall.

collocation: pick blackberries

Grandma made warm blackberry jam every September using fruit from the garden.

collocation: blackberry jam / pie / crumble

Common collocations
  • pick blackberries
  • ripe blackberries
  • wild blackberries
  • blackberry jam
  • blackberry pie
  • blackberry crumble
Synonyms
  • bramble

    British, often refers to the thorny plant or its fruit together

Grammar Patterns

a/the blackberry

a bowl of blackberries

Usage Note

Countable, so use 'a blackberry' for one fruit and 'blackberries' for more. Often used as a noun modifier in food terms: 'blackberry jam', 'blackberry pie'.

Common Mistakes

I ate some blackberry for dessert.
I ate some blackberries for dessert.
use the plural when talking about more than one piece of fruit.

2. The thorny, climbing bush that produces blackberries. Its long stems trail along

2.nounB1
Definition

The thorny, climbing bush that produces blackberries. Its long stems trail along hedges and waste ground, and they are covered in sharp prickles that can scratch your hands.

Example

A thick blackberry had grown right across the path to the back gate.

Mr. Patel cut back the wild blackberries along the fence with thick leather gloves.

collocation: cut back the blackberries

Common collocations
  • blackberry bush
  • wild blackberry
  • thorny blackberry
  • cut back a blackberry
Synonyms
  • bramble

    the most common British word for the plant

  • blackberry bush

    fuller, less ambiguous form used in everyday speech

Grammar Patterns

a blackberry bush

Usage Note

More often called 'blackberry bush' or 'bramble' in everyday speech; the bare noun 'a blackberry' for the plant is most common in gardening or nature writing. Distinguish from sense 1 (the fruit itself).

blackberry — verb

Word family

  • blackberrying
    nounB2
  • bramble
    nounB2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four name dark, soft summer berries, but they are not interchangeable. A 'blackberry' is small, deep purple-black, and made of many tiny shiny bumps; in British English, 'bramble' often means the same fruit and almost always means the thorny plant it grows on. A 'raspberry' is bright red (or sometimes yellow), softer, and hollow inside once you pull it off its stem. A 'mulberry' looks similar to a blackberry but grows on a tall tree, not a low bush, and stains clothes more strongly. Cooks usually treat blackberries and raspberries as a pair in pies and jams, while mulberries are rarer and bramble is the most countryside-feeling word: 'We picked brambles' sounds more rural than 'We picked blackberries'.

blackberry ↗brambleraspberry ↗mulberry

Common collocations

Nouns

  • blackberry jam
  • blackberry pie
  • blackberry crumble
  • blackberry bush
  • blackberry season

Phrases

  • pick blackberries
  • go blackberrying
  • wild blackberries
  • ripe blackberries
  • a punnet of blackberries

Prepositions

  • blackberry from (a bush)
  • blackberries in (a basket)

Etymology

Old EnglishMiddle EnglishModern English

Recorded in Old English as 'blaceberian', literally 'black berry', from 'blæc' (black) plus 'berie' (berry). The name simply describes the fruit's dark colour at full ripeness, even though unripe blackberries are red. The verb meaning 'to gather wild blackberries' developed much later, in 19th-century British English, as a country-life term, and survives mainly in the form 'go blackberrying'.