bayberry

American  

[bey-ber-ee, -buh-ree] / ˈbeɪˌbɛr i, -bə ri /

noun

bayberries plural

1. any of several often aromatic trees or shrubs of the genus Myrica, as M. pensylvanica, of northeastern North America, and M. californica, of the western U.S.

2. the berry of such a plant.

3. bay.

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bayberry British  

/ ˈbeɪbərɪ /

noun

1. any of several North American aromatic shrubs or small trees of the genus Myrica , that bear grey waxy berries: family Myricaceae See also wax myrtle

2. Also called: bay rum tree.  a tropical American myrtaceous tree, Pimenta racemosa , that yields an oil used in making bay rum

3. the fruit of any of these plants

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• bayberries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of bayberry

First recorded in 1570–80; bay ⁴ + berry

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bayberry bayberries

Now, it is a larger and maturing display that includes towering shrubs of buttonbush and bayberry amid lower drifts of lobelia, aster, swamp mallow, goldenrod and winterberry.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 27, 2021

In the heart of the garden, there are towering shrubs of buttonbush and bayberry amid lower drifts of lobelia, aster, swamp mallow, goldenrod and winterberry.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 14, 2021

They set up their summer camps within dunes blanketed with beach grass and sand pea, amid thickets of bayberry, oak and red cedar.

From New York Times ● Aug. 12, 2021

Once, it had been a joy to follow those roads through the evergreen forests—roads lined with bayberry and sweet fern, alder and huckleberry.

From The New Yorker ● Jan. 3, 2017

This would have been during the holidays, five months earlier, because I remembered the porch banisters all decorated with pine boughs and an enormous, sweet-smelling bayberry wreath that hung on the front door.

From "Red Kayak" by Priscilla Cummings

For two days they had been boiling the small gray bayberries that Kit and Judith had gathered in the fields, and Rachel had skimmed off the thick greenish tallow.

From "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare

A hardy Warbler which, like the Tree Swallow, can substitute bayberries for insects.

From What Bird is That? A Pocket Museum of the Land Birds of the Eastern United States Arranged According to Season by Chapman, Frank M.

Fifthly, a small pot of diatesseron, composed of gentian, myrrh, bayberries, and round aristolochia.

From Old Saint Paul's A Tale of the Plague and the Fire by Ainsworth, William Harrison

The pastures are blue now with bayberries, which seem to be their favorite food.

From Old Plymouth Trails by Packard, Winthrop

The flicker devours most of the fruits listed for the two woodpeckers named above, also hackberry, black alder, green brier, bayberries.

From Seed Dispersal by Beal, W. J. (William James)