Word.ws English Dictionary

berberry

berberry is the archaic form of barberry.

Meaning of barberry

Noun

barberry (plural barberries)

  1. Any of the thorny shrubs of genus Berberis, which bear yellow flowers and red or blue-black berries.
    • BOlvs in Engliſh is called a morſell. It is a medicine laxatiue, in forme & faſhion it is meanely whole, & it is ſwallowed by litle gobbets. […] ℞. medulla caſiæ fiſtulæ newly drawen. ℥. j. or ʒ. x. the graines (that is the kernelles) of barbaries. ℈. ß. and with ſugar roſet [sugar compounded with...1583, Philip Barrough [i.e., Philip Barrow], “Of Making Bolus”, in The Methode of Phisicke, Conteyning the Causes, Signes, and Cures of Inward Diseases in Mans Body from the Head to the Foote. […]...
    Synonyms:
    berberis
  2. The edible fruit of these shrubs.

Forms of berberry

pluralberberries

Questions about berberry

What is berberry the archaic form of?
Berberry is the archaic form of barberry.

Words near berberry in the dictionary

  1. Berberology
  2. berberophone
  3. berberophones
  4. berberries
  5. berberrubine
  6. berberry
  7. Berbers
  8. Berberyan
  9. Berberyans
  10. Berberyn
  11. berbes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: berberry (page history and authors); barberry (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “berberry.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/berberry. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.