shrub
/ˈʃɹʌb/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Ireland/ˈʃɹʊb/
shrub noun: a woody plant smaller than a tree, and usually with several stems from the same base.
Noun (1)
shrub (plural shrubs)
- A woody plant smaller than a tree, and usually with several stems from the same base.
- No trees have grown on the windswept Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean for tens of thousands of years — just shrubs and other low-lying vegetation. That’s why a recent arboreal discovery nearly 20 feet (6 meters) beneath the ground caught researchers’ attention.2024 September 27, Katie Hunt, “Scientists discover hidden ancient forest on treeless island”, in CNN
- Tara flour is one of two products made from the seed pods of a thorny shrub native to Peru. One of those, tara gum, has been used safely for years as a thickening agent or stabilizer in human foods.2024 October 3, Sandee LaMotte, “‘I’ve never experienced pain like that’: Consumers pay the price for untested food ingredients”, in CNN
- Synonyms:
- bush
Verb (1)
shrub (third-person singular simple present shrubs, present participle shrubbing, simple past and past participle shrubbed)
Noun (2)
shrub (countable and uncountable, plural shrubs)
- A liquor composed of vegetable acid, fruit juice (especially lemon), sugar, sometimes vinegar, and a small amount of spirit as a preservative. Modern shrub is usually non-alcoholic, but in earlier times it was often mixed with a substantial amount of spirit such as brandy or rum, thus making it a liqueur.
Verb (2)
shrub (third-person singular simple present shrubs, present participle shrubbing, simple past and past participle shrubbed)
- To make or drink a shrub (liquor drink).
Verb (3)
shrub (third-person singular simple present shrubs, present participle shrubbing, simple past and past participle shrubbed)
- To mispronounce (a word or words) in another language in a manner that is influenced by one's mother tongue.
- The people who benefit from making fun of shrubbing, therefore, are Kenyans who do not speak indigenous languages, because they are less likely to shrub than Kenyans who learned English as a second language in school and may have a heavier accent.2010, Norma Mendoza-Denton, Dana Osborne, quoting Heidi Orcutt-Gachiri, “Two Languages, Two Identities?”, in Carmen Llamas, Dominic Watt, editors, Shrubbing and the evaluation of expertise in Kenyan...
- However, Mwandani and her brother had noted that their mother had shrubbed and pointed it out right away.2014, Michael Gathonjia Wairungu, “The notion of shrubbing vs. Mother tongue interference: a question of generation”, in "A Language of Many Hats": The Rise of Sheng and other Linguistic Styles among...
Noun (3)
shrub (plural shrubs)
- A word mispronounced by replacing some consonant sounds with others of a similar place of articulation as influenced by one's mother tongue.
- It is not only in face-to-face contexts that Kenyans police shrubbing; there are newspaper columns inviting readers to send in shrubs that they have witnessed, […]2010, Norma Mendoza-Denton, Dana Osborne, “Two Languages, Two Identities?”, in Carmen Llamas, Dominic Watt, editors, Language and Identities, →ISBN, page 121
- One of the first people to go on air on X Fm, Raabia (It’s not a kuyu [Kikuyu] shrub for labia) is about to exit the station, she’s being replaced by Mao (their lispy producer) […]2011 September 23, Yeye, “Fuck it!”, in Media Madness, archived from the original on 24 Sep 2011
Proper noun capitalized: Shrub
Shrub
- George W. Bush (born 1946), the 43rd president of the United States (2001–2009).
- Ann Richards [...] is running for reelection as Governor of Texas against George W. Bush, a Republican and the eldest son of the former President. […] She derides him as “all hat and no cattle.” […] Her followers hand out bumper stickers saying: “Don't elect the son-of-a-Bush.” They call him...1994 October 20, Ian Brodie, “Lone Star governor struggles to uproot the Shrub”, in The Times, London, page 15
- For the past five days, mostly in New York and SC, the Shrub has apparently been running ads that characterize McCain’s policy proposals in what Murphy terms a “willfully distorting” way.2000 April 13, David Foster Wallace, “David Foster Wallace on John McCain: ‘The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys and the Shrub’”, in Rolling Stone
shrub meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
shrub in Hindi
- woody plant
- झाड़ी jhāṛī
shrub in Tamil
- புதர், புதர்ச்செடி, செடி, குத்துச்செடி, பற்றை, குறுமரம்
shrub in Marathi
- woody plant
- क्षुप kṣup, झुडुप jhuḍup
shrub in Urdu
- woody plant
- جھاڑی jhāṛī
More languagesFewer languages
- shrub in Bengali
- গুল্ম gulmo
- shrub in Telugu
- పొద, పొదకు, పొదకి
- shrub in Malayalam
- ചെടി ceṭi
- shrub in Kannada
- ಗಿಡ giḍa
- shrub in Sinhala
- පඳුර
- shrub in Tagalog
- palumpong, lantana
- shrub in Arabic
- شُجَيْرَة šujayra, شَرَاب šarāb
- shrub in Malay
- renek
- shrub in Indonesian
- belukar
- shrub in Persian
- بوته bute, درختچه
- shrub in Thai
- ไม้พุ่ม máai-pûm, พุ่ม pûm
- shrub in Vietnamese
- cây nhỏ, cây bụi, bụi cây
- shrub in Myanmar
- ချုံ hkyum
Examples of shrub in a sentence
- The garden had a harmonious design, with flowers and shrubs complementing each other.
- After a couple of years without pruning, the shrub had grown overlarge and completely obscured the window.
- Subshrubs, shrubs, trees and lianas are all woody plants.
Synonyms of shrub
Forms of shrub
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | shrubs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | shrubs |
| present participle | shrubbing |
| past participle | shrubbed |
| past | shrubbed |
Origin of shrub
From Middle English schrub, schrob, (also unassibilated as scrub), from Old English *sċrob (in placenames) and sċrybb (“a shrub; shrubbery; underbrush”); akin to Norwegian skrubbe (“the dwarf cornel tree”). Doublet of scrub.
From Arabic شِرَاب (širāb, “a drink, beverage”), شَرِبَ (šariba, “to drink”), akin to syrup, sherbet, and sorbet.
Of unknown origin. First attested in the 2000s. Chiefly used in respect to English or Swahili pronounced in a manner characteristic of another Kenyan language.
Words formed from shrub
- gold-shrub
- intershrub
- sea shrub
- semishrub
- semishrubby
- shrubbed
- shrubbery
- shrubbish
- shrubby
- shrub celery
- shrub frog
- shrubful
- shrubification
- shrubland
- shrubless
- shrublet
- shrublike
- shrub line
- shrubling
- Shrub Oak
- shrub ox
- shrubsteppe
- shrub trimmer
- shrubwood
- subshrub
- sweetshrub
- tea shrub
- undershrub
- unshrubbed
- shrubbing
- Shrubya
- shrub out
- shrub up
Phrases with shrub
Words that rhyme with shrub
Questions about shrub
- What does shrub mean?
- Shrub means a woody plant smaller than a tree, and usually with several stems from the same base.
- What is shrub in Hindi?
- Shrub in Hindi is झाड़ी (jhāṛī). See Shrub meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is shrub?
- Shrub can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce shrub?
- Shrub is pronounced /ˈʃɹʌb/.
- What is the plural of shrub?
- The plural of shrub is shrubs.
Words near shrub in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shrub (page history and authors); Shrub (page history and authors); shrub (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shrub (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ചെടി (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಗಿಡ (Kannada) (page history and authors); shrub (Sinhala Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-shrub.ogg.
Cite this entry: “shrub.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shrub. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.