blaeberry
(ˈbleɪbɛrɪ, ˈblɪə-)
Also (5 blabery), 6 ble-, 9 blea-, blay-, bleeaberry.
[f. blae + berry: in ON. bláber, Sw. blåbär, Du. blaabær.]
1. The common name in Scotland and the north of England of the bilberry or whortleberry (Vaccinium Myrtillus). Applied to fruit and plant.
| [1483 Cath. Angl. 33 A Blabery.] 1562 Turner Herbal ii. L j, Takyng the bleberries or hurtel berries. a 1758 Ramsay Poems (1800) II. 107 (Jam.) Gif I could find blae⁓berries ripe for thee. 1822 T. Bewick Mem. 256 The creeping groundlings, the blea-berry, the wild strawberry, the hare⁓bell. 1861 Geikie in Gd. Words Feb. 76/1 Yonder pastoral glens, where we boys were wont to gather blaeberries and junipers. 1862 Corn. Mag. V. 457 Branches loaded with the tiny purple blae berry, the bloom yet fresh on them. |
2. Also applied to cognate species.
| 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. xix. (1856) 143 Here I saw the bleaberry (vaccinium uliginosum) in flower and in fruit. 1861 Miss Pratt Flower. Pl. III. 353. |