cranberry
pronunciation
How to pronounce cranberry in British English:
UK [ ˈkrænbəri]
How to pronounce cranberry in American English:
US [ ˈkrænberi]
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- Noun:
- any of numerous shrubs of genus Vaccinium bearing cranberries
- very tart red berry used for sauce or juice
Word Origin
- cranberry (n.)
- 1640s, American English adaptation of Low German kraanbere, from kraan "crane" (see crane (n.)) + Middle Low German bere "berry" (see berry). Perhaps so called from a resemblance between the plants' stamens and the beaks of cranes. Upon the Rocks and in the Moss, grew a Shrub whose fruit was very sweet, full of red juice like Currans, perhaps 'tis the same with the New England Cranberry, or Bear-Berry, (call'd so from the Bears devouring it very greedily;) with which we make Tarts. ["An Account of Several Late Voyages & Discoveries," London, 1694] German and Dutch settlers in the New World apparently recognized the similarity between the European berries (Vaccinium oxycoccos) and the larger North American variety (V. macrocarpum) and transferred the name. In England, they were marshwort or fenberries, but the North American berries, and the name, were brought over late 17c. The native Algonquian name for the plant is represented by West Abenaki popokwa.
Example
- 1. Scientists said a warmer new england would be less hospitable to maple sugar farms , apple orchards and cranberry bogs .
- 2. Cranberry juice isn 't the only food that offers protection from specific illnesses .
- 3. U.s. cranberry crop recalled three weeks before thanksgiving for fda tests to check for aminotriazole , a weedkiller found to cause cancer in laboratory animals .
- 4. Last christmas eve , while rahul was watching his mother-in-law make cranberry sauce in her kitchen , sarah walked through the back door , cheeks flushed , looking exhilarated from a walk in the snow and she announced , " I just bumped into an old friend of mine ! "