mulberry - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Mulberries on a tree, with a caterpillar.

From Middle English mulbery, molberye, murberie, partly from Old English mōrberġe (“mulberry”) (q.v.), and probably partly from Middle Low German mulbere (“mulberry”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *mūrubaʀi ~ *mōrubaʀi, from Latin mōrus + Proto-West Germanic *baʀi. Compare Dutch moerbezie, moerbei (“mulberry”), German Maulbeere (“mulberry”).

mulberry (countable and uncountable, plural mulberries)

  1. (countable) Any of several trees, of the genus Morus, having edible fruits.
    • 1837, Luigi Tinelli, Hints on the Cultivation of the Mulberry, with Some General Observations on the Production of Silk, page 39:
      Different qualities of the Mulberry. Among the different species of the Mulberry, it is ascertained that the Italian, (Morus italica) is eaten by the silk worm, with eager appetite. It's fruit is very small, and of a pale rose colour.
    • 1951 November, 'Pausanias', “To Greece by the "Simplon-Orient Express"”, in Railway Magazine, page 729:
      Beyond the south end of the lake, the route lies across the plain of Lombardy, where the mulberry trees are evidence of the silk industry.
  2. (countable) The fruit of this tree.
    • 2010, Geoff Stebbings, Growing Your Own Fruit and Veg For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:
      You can also make good jam with mulberries, and they taste great cooked or mixed together with other fruits. Mulberries are rich in sugar with moderate amounts of vitamin C. Their rich colours are a sign that they contain high levels of […]
  3. A dark purple colour tinted with red.
    mulberry:

the tree

the fruit

the colour

mulberry (comparative more mulberry, superlative most mulberry)

  1. Of a dark purple color tinted with red.