briar
pronunciation
How to pronounce briar in British English:
UK ['braɪə(r)]
How to pronounce briar in American English:
US [ˈbraɪɚ]
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- Noun:
- Eurasian rose with prickly stems and fragrant leaves and bright pink flowers followed by scarlet hips
- a very prickly woody vine of the eastern United States growing in tangled masses having tough round stems with shiny leathery leaves and small greenish flowers followed by clusters of inedible shiny black berries
- evergreen treelike Mediterranean shrub having fragrant white flowers in large terminal panicles and hard woody roots used to make tobacco pipes
- a pipe made from the root (briarroot) of the tree heath
Word Origin
- briar
- briar: There are two distinct words briar in English, both of which can also be spelled brier, and as their meanings are fairly similar, they are often confused. The older [OE] is a name given to the wild rose, although in fact this usage is as recent as the 16th century, and in Old English times the word was used generally for any prickly bush, including particularly the bramble.The Old English form was brēr, but it is not known where this came from. The other briar, ‘wild heather’ [19], is the one whose root is used for making briar pipes. The word comes from French bruyère, and was spelled bruyer when first introduced into English in the third quarter of the 19th century; the current spelling is due to assimilation to the other briar.The French form comes from Gallo-Roman *brūcaria, a derivative of *brūcus, which was borrowed from Gaulish brūko. It appears to be related to the Greek word for ‘heather’, ereikē, from which English gets the technical botanical term ericaceous [19].
- briar (n.)
- see brier (n.1).
Example
- 1. Is there a briar patch ?
- 2. All around the castle a briar hedge began to grow .
- 3. Is dr. briar on duty tonight ?
- 4. I see you smoke an english briar .
- 5. They caused him significant physical and psychiatric injuries . Mr watkins , 28 , of briar hill , sued the state government and the three officers , claiming he was left with multiple grazes around his face , ears and head and suffered intense anxiety , pain and emotional distress .