woodbine

American  

[wood-bahyn] / ˈwʊdˌbaɪn /

noun

1. any of several climbing vines, especially those of genera Lonicera of the honeysuckle family and Parthenocissus of the grape family.

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woodbine British  

/ ˈwuːdˌbaɪn /

noun

1. a honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum, of Europe, SW Asia, and N Africa, having fragrant creamy flowers

2. a related North American plant, L. caprifolium

3. another name for Virginia creeper

4. obsolete an Englishman

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Etymology

Origin of woodbine

First recorded before 900; Middle English wodebind(e), Old English wudubind, wudebinde, equivalent to wudu “wood” + bind “binding”; see origin at wood ¹, bind

Example Sentences

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: .

From Time Magazine Archive

Cool and resourceful, she "smells out money like a honey bee smells out woodbine."

From Time Magazine Archive

Weeds towered where the woodbine blossomed, and tangled grass sprung up by the threshold where many feet used to tread.

From Olive Leaves Or, Sketches of Character by Sigourney, L. H. (Lydia Howard)

Bitter-sweet on porch and paling, woodbine and white-starred clematis, and the deep hum of bees; and in the sunlit garden poppies, red as the blood of martyrs.

From Cardigan by Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)

The branches o’ the woodbine hide    My little cottage wall, An’ though ’tis but a humble thatch,    Aw envy not the hall.

From Random Rhymes and Rambles by Wright, William Aldis