whortleberry
(ˈhwɜːt(ə)lbɛrɪ)
Also (8 whirtle-), 8–9 wortleberry.
[South-western dial. form of hurtleberry: cf. whort. Used by Lyte, a Somerset man, in his translation of Dodoens' Herbal, whence app. by later writers on plants, so as to have become at length the usual ‘book-name’.]
The blue-black fruit of the dwarf shrub Vaccinium Myrtillus, or the plant itself; otherwise called bilberry or blaeberry. Also extended to the genus Vaccinium as a whole (excepting the species called cranberry, V. Oxycoccos and V. macrocarpon).
bear's whortleberry, a name for the Bearberry, Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi. bog whortleberry, Vaccinium uliginosum. red whortleberry, V. Vitis-Idæa. Victorian whortleberry, Wittsteinia vacciniacea, a shrub allied to Vaccinium found in Victoria.
| 1578 [see whort]. 1671 Salmon Syn. Med. iii. xxii. 438. 1702 C. Mather Magnalia vi. ii. 11 Sometimes we liv'd on Wortle berries, sometimes on a kind of Wild Cherry. 1764 Ann. Reg., Char. 9 The hair..is dyed with the juice of the red wortleberry. 1778 J. Carver Trav. N. Amer. xix. 504 The Whirtle Berry. 1816 Scott Bl. Dwarf xiii, A territory, which, since the days of Adam, had borne nothing but ling and whortle-berries. 1869 Blackmore Lorna D. v, [They] laid him softly on a bank of whortle-berries. |
| attrib. 1770 J. R. Forster tr. Kalm's Trav. N. Amer. I. 66 A species of whortleberry shrub. 1825 J. Neal Bro. Jonathan II. 340 A..whortle-berry pudding. 1863 Baring-Gould Iceland 178 Hot mutton flavored with whortleberry jam. 1884 Miller Plant-n., Whortle-berry-bush, Victorian, Wittsteinia vacciniacea. |