hazel
pronunciation
How to pronounce hazel in British English:
UK [ˈheɪzl]
How to pronounce hazel in American English:
US [ˈhezəl]
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- Noun:
- Australian tree grown especially for ornament and its fine-grained wood and bearing edible nuts
- the fine-grained wood of a hazelnut tree (genus Corylus) and the hazel tree (Australian genus Pomaderris)
- any of several shrubs or small trees of the genus Corylus bearing edible nuts enclosed in a leafy husk
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- Adjective:
- of a light brown or yellowish brown color
Word Origin
- hazel
- hazel: [OE] Hazel is a very ancient tree-name. It can be traced right back to Indo-European *kosolos or *koselos, which also produced French coudrier and Welsh collen. Its Germanic descendant was *khasalaz, from which come German hasel, Dutch hazel-, and Swedish and Danish hassel as well as English hazel. The earliest known use of the word to describe the colour of eyes comes in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 1592: ‘Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason, but thou hast hazel eyes’.
- hazel (n.)
- Old English hæsl, hæsel, from Proto-Germanic *hasalaz (cognates: Old Norse hasl, Middle Dutch hasel, German hasel), from PIE *koselo- "hazel" (cognates: Latin corulus, Old Irish coll "hazel"). Shakespeare ("Romeo and Juliet," 1592) was first to use it (in print) in the sense of "reddish-brown color of eyes" (in reference to the color of ripe hazel-nuts), when Mercutio accuses Benvolio:Thou wilt quarrell with a man for cracking Nuts, hauing no reason, but because thou hast hasell eyes.
Example
- 1. To swell the gourd , and plump the hazel shells
- 2. The hazel dormouse , once widespread throughout the uk , is now vulnerable to regional extinction .
- 3. At sissinghurst in kent , roses are grown through frames of hazel sticks , and at mottisfont abbey , in hampshire , long shoots are pinned to the ground .
- 4. Loss of hedgerows and fragmentation of woodland habitat has nearly wiped out the hazel dormouse from britain .