Word.ws English Dictionary

berry

UK/ˈbɛɹi/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˈbeɹi/

berry noun: a small succulent fruit, of any one of many varieties.

berry: a small succulent fruit, of any one of many varieties
Image: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

berry (plural berries)

  1. A small succulent fruit, of any one of many varieties.
  2. A soft fruit which develops from a single ovary and contains seeds not encased in pits.
  3. A coffee bean.
  4. One of the ova or eggs of a fish or crustacean.
    • The crabs carry their berries for six months.1877, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Parliamentary Papers - Volume 24, page 7
    • That is the only restriction existing: not even small fish or fish in berry, and there are no restrictions on soft-shelled fish.1913, Journals and Printed Papers of the Parliament of Tasmania, page 94
  5. (US, slang, African-American) A police car.
    • Today was like one of those fly dreams
      Didn't even see a berry flashin' those high beams1992, Ice Cube, “It Was a Good Day”, in The Predator
  6. (US, dated, slang) A dollar.
    • Four rounds and Enright still on his feet and a hundred and fifty thousand berries gone if he stays two more!1921, Collier's, volume 67, page 365

Verb (1)

berry (third-person singular simple present berries, present participle berrying, simple past and past participle berried)

  1. (intransitive) To pick berries.
    • On summer days Grandma used to take us berrying, whether we wanted to go or not.
    • Partly because I always itched and prickled in a berry patch I may have been disinclined to nibble as I worked; but largely I think it was because I berried under a master strategist and I wanted to see how well we could coordinate our efforts...1988, Early American Life, page 35
  2. To bear or produce berries.

Noun (2)

berry (plural berries)

  1. (dialectal) A mound; a barrow.

Noun (3)

berry (plural berries)

  1. (dialectal) A burrow, especially a rabbit's burrow.
  2. An excavation; a military mine.

Verb (2)

berry (third-person singular simple present berries, present participle berrying, simple past and past participle berried)

  1. (transitive) To beat; give a beating to; thrash.
  2. (transitive) To thresh (grain).

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Berry

Berry

  1. A surname from Middle English.
  2. A male given name transferred from the surname.
    • Beresford Conway. All my pals call me Berry.1930 P. G. Wodehouse, Big Money, Colliers' Weekly, Vol.86, page 110
    • Since my father's name was Berry Gordy, he named me Berry Gordy. There's no middle name.1979, Berry Gordy, Movin' Up. Pop Gordy Tells His Story, Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 9
  3. A town in Fayette County, Alabama, United States, named after Thompson Berry.
  4. A minor city in Harrison County, Kentucky, United States.
  5. A town in Dane County, Wisconsin, United States.
  6. A municipality in Abitibi Regional County Municipality, Quebec, Canada.
  7. A village in the City of Shoalhaven, New South Wales, Australia, named after Alexander Berry.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Berry

Berry

  1. (rare) A female given name from English.
    • "I'm Beryl Shaddock. Call me Berry," the girl said.2002, James Hadley Chase, Not My Thing, House of Stratus, →ISBN, page 152
    • "What's with your dad calling you 'Berry' anyway? What kind of name is 'Berry'?" "Oh, it's short for Huckleberry," she replied, as if that explained everything.2005, Sandra-Kay Austin, The Old Man's Secret, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 34

Proper noun (3) capitalized: Berry

Berry

  1. A former province in Centre-Val de Loire region, France.

berry meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

berry in Hindi

small succulent fruit
बेरी berī

berry in Tamil

சதைக்கனி, ஒரு பழ வகை

berry in Marathi

बेरी

berry in Urdu

small succulent fruit
بیری berī, تُوت tūt
More languagesFewer languages
berry in Bengali
বেরি beri
berry in Telugu
బెర్రీ, బెర్రీకి
berry in Malayalam
ഒരുതരം ചെറുപഴം
berry in Kannada
ಬೆರ್ರಿ
berry in Punjabi
ਬੇਰੀ
berry in Odia
ବେରି, ବେରୀ
berry in Sanskrit
पिप्पलि pippali, पिप्पल píppala, बदर badara
berry in Nepali
बेरी, बेर्री, बेरी गर्न
berry in Tagalog
baya, bitungol, tagtasbunga
berry in Arabic
تُوت tūt, حَبَّة ḥabba
berry in Malay
beri
berry in Indonesian
beri
berry in Thai
เบอร์รี bəə-rîi, เบอรี่ bəə-rîi
berry in Vietnamese
quả mọng, quả
berry in Myanmar
ဗယ်ရီသီး bairisi:, အသီးကလေး a.si:ka.le:

Examples of berry in a sentence

  • These crawfish are speared by the Kafirs, who bring them in to the village for sale, and who catch anything and everything either female fish in berry, or male fish in soft shell.1914, Cape of Good Hope (South Africa). Provincial Council, Minutes and Ordinances - Volume 5, page 3:
  • McCormick (1934) stated that eggs in various stages of development were found in females at the same time that they were in berry, which indicates a long egg-laying season.1965, Fishery Bulletin of the Fish and Wildlife Service - Volume 65, page 55:

All 40 example sentences with berry

Forms of berry

Noun
pluralberries
alternative formberye
alternative formberie
Verb
third-person singular presentberries
present participleberrying
past participleberried
pastberried

Plural of berry: berries

Origin of berry

From Middle English berie, from Old English berġe, from Proto-West Germanic *baʀi, from Proto-Germanic *bazją. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Bäie, West Flemish beier, German Beere, Icelandic ber, Danish bær. The slang sense "police car" may come from the lights on the vehicles' roofs.

From Middle English berȝe, berghe, from Old English beorġe, dative form of beorg (“mountain, hill, mound, barrow”), from Proto-West Germanic *berg, from Proto-Germanic *bergaz (“mountain, hill”). More at barrow. Cognates Cognate with Scots burrow (“mound, tumulus, barrow”), North Frisian Bārig, beerch, beeri, beerj, berag, berig, berri, bärj (“mountain”), Saterland Frisian Bierich, Bíerig, Bäirch (“mountain”), West Frisian berch (“mountain”), Cimbrian pèrge (“mountain”), Dutch berg (“mountain”), German Berg (“mountain”), German Low German Barg (“mountain”), Limburgish berg, Bärrech (“hill, mountain”), Luxembourgish Bierg (“mountain”), Mòcheno pèrg (“mountain”), Yiddish באַרג (barg, “mountain”), Danish bjerg (“mountain”), Faroese berg, bjarg (“cliff”), bjørg (“cliffs”), Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish berg (“mountain”); also Northern Luri برگ (berg, “mountain”), Polish brzeg (“bank, shore”), Russian бе́рег (béreg, “bank, shore”).

From Middle English bery (“a burrow”). More at burrow.

Words formed from berry

Phrases with berry

38 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with berry

9 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about berry

What does berry mean?
Berry means a small succulent fruit, of any one of many varieties.
What is berry in Hindi?
Berry in Hindi is बेरी (berī). See Berry meaning in Hindi.
How do you use berry in a sentence?
These crawfish are speared by the Kafirs, who bring them in to the village for sale, and who catch anything and everything either female fish in berry, or male fish in soft shell.
What part of speech is berry?
Berry can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce berry?
Berry is pronounced /ˈbɛɹi/ (UK).
What is the plural of berry?
The plural of berry is berries.

Words near berry in the dictionary

  1. Berroneses
  2. Berrong
  3. Berrongs
  4. Berrow
  5. Berrows
  6. berry
  7. berry blue
  8. berry blues
  9. Berry Brow
  10. berry catchflies
  11. berry catchfly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: berry (page history and authors); Berry (page history and authors); berry (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); berry (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); berry (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); berry (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); berry (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); berry (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); berry (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); पिप्पल (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); berry (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-ne-berry.ogg.

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