bilberry, billberry
(ˈbɪlbɛrɪ)
Also 7 bilbery.
[App. of Norse origin; cf. Da. böllebær, f. bölle (used separately for bilberry) + bær berry. (The origin of Da. bölle is unknown; the suggestion that it is:—ON. bǫllr ball is phonetically improbable, since this gives Sw. boll, Da. bold.)]
1. The fruit of a dwarf hardy shrub (Vaccinium Myrtillus), abundant on heaths, on stony moors, and in mountain woods, in Great Britain and Northern Europe; the berry is of a deep blue black, and about a quarter of an inch in diameter. So called chiefly in the Midlands; other names are whortleberry and blaeberry. The name is applied also to the plant, and used attrib.
| 1577 Dee Relat. Spir. i. (1659) 171 The cloth, Hair-colourd, Bilbery juyce. 1594 Barnfield Aff. Sheph. ii. xii, Straw⁓berries or Bil-berries, in their prime. 1598 Shakes. Merry W. v. v. 49 There pinch the Maids as blew as Bill⁓berry. 1810 Wordsw. Descr. Lakes 1 (1823) 29 The bilberry, a ground plant, never so beautiful as in early spring. 1821 Clare Vill. Minstr. I. 87 In misty blue, Bilberries glow on tendrils weak. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. §6. 45, I lay down upon the bilberry bushes. |
2. Applied with or without qualification to other species of Vaccinium; e.g. in Britain to the Great Bilberry or Bog Whortleberry (V. uliginosum).
| 1640 Parkinson Theat. Bot. 1455 Vaccinia nigra fructu majore. The greater Billberry. 1859 R. Burton Centr. Afr. in Jrnl. R.G.S. XXIX. 84 Garlands of small red bilberries. 1864 Webster s.v., The species of American bilberry are referred to the sub-genus Eu-vaccinium. |
Hence ˈbilberrying vbl. n., gathering bilberries.
| 1859 W. Coleman Woodlands (1866) 92 A party of rustic children ‘a bilberrying.’ |