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• berry
  berry

  noun

  any small, usually stoneless, juicy fruit, irrespective of botanical structure, as the huckleberry, strawberry, or hackberry.
• Berry
  Berry

  noun

  Charles Edward Anderson Chuck, 1926–2017, U.S. rock-'n'-roll singer, musician, and composer.

berry

¹ American  

[ber-ee] / ˈbɛr i /

noun

• berries
  plural

1. any small, usually stoneless, juicy fruit, irrespective of botanical structure, as the huckleberry, strawberry, or hackberry.

2. Botany. a simple fruit having a pulpy pericarp in which the seeds are embedded, as the grape, gooseberry, currant, or tomato.

3. a dry seed or kernel, as of wheat.

4. the hip of the rose.

5. one of the eggs of a lobster, crayfish, etc.

6. Older Slang. the berries, someone or something very attractive or unusual.

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verb (used without object)

• berries,
  present (3rd person singular)
• berried,
  past participle,  past
• berrying
  present participle

1. to gather or pick berries.

   We went berrying this morning.

2. to bear or produce berries.

Berry ² American  

[ber-ee, be-ree] / ˈbɛr i, bɛˈri /

noun

1. Charles Edward Anderson Chuck, 1926–2017, U.S. rock-'n'-roll singer, musician, and composer.

2. Also Berri. a former province in central France.

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berry ¹ British  

/ ˈbɛrɪ /

noun

1. any of various small edible fruits such as the blackberry and strawberry

2. botany an indehiscent fruit with two or more seeds and a fleshy pericarp, such as the grape or gooseberry

3. any of various seeds or dried kernels, such as a coffee bean

4. the egg of a lobster, crayfish, or similar animal

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verb

1. to bear or produce berries

2. to gather or look for berries

Berry ² British  

noun

1. Chuck , full name Charles Edward Berry . born 1926, US rock-and-roll guitarist, singer, and songwriter. His frequently covered songs include "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), "Memphis, Tennessee" (1959), and "Promised Land" (1964)

2. Jean de France (ʒɑ̃ də frɑ̃s), Duc de. 1340–1416, French prince, son of King John II; coregent (1380–88) for Charles VI and a famous patron of the arts

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berry Scientific  

/ bĕr′ē /

1. A simple fruit that has many seeds in a fleshy pulp. Grapes, bananas, tomatoes, and blueberries are berries.

2. Compare drupe pome See more at simple fruit

3. A seed or dried kernel of certain kinds of grain or other plants such as wheat, barley, or coffee.

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Usage

What does berry mean? A berry is a small, stoneless, juicy fruit. Commonly, a berry is any small fruit that has no pit and usually produces juice. Berries range from sweet, such as the blueberry, to sour, such as the raspberry. In botany, a berry is specifically a fruit with a pulpy outer wall and many seeds. Botanically, then, some fruits commonly thought of as berries are not actually berries, including strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries. Fruits that botanically are berries include blueberries, bananas, grapes, and tomatoes. Less commonly, berry can also refer to a dry seed or kernel. As a verb, to berry means to pick berries or to produce berries. Example: We picked berries today, filling up three whole baskets.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• berried
  adjective
• berryless
  adjective
• berrylike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• berries
  plural

Participles

• berrying
  present
• berried
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• berry
  simple
• berries
  simple
• have berried
  perfect
• has berried
  perfect
• am berrying
  progressive
• are berrying
  progressive
• is berrying
  progressive
• have been berrying
  perfect progressive
• has been berrying
  perfect progressive

Past

• berried
  simple
• had berried
  perfect
• was berrying
  progressive
• were berrying
  progressive
• had been berrying
  perfect progressive

Future

• will berry
  simple
• will have berried
  perfect
• will be berrying
  progressive
• will have been berrying
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of berry

before 1000; Middle English berie, Old English beri ( g ) e; cognate with Old Saxon, Old High German beri ( German Beere ), Old Norse ber < Germanic basjá-; akin to Dutch besie, Gothic -basi < Germanic básja-

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

berry Berry berries berried berrying

Instead of planting berry bushes out in the open, as is often done in the U.S., it decided to grow them in greenhouses using water systems that couldn’t be contaminated by nearby farms.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026

The single star was painted in berry juice, as was the bear, which looked so porcine that Mexicans who were struggling to protect California from Yankee rogues mocked it as more pig than bear.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026

Those include rival Rogue’s mango-flavored pouches and Velo’s wild berry and dragon fruit flavors.

From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026

In contrast, the low PPO mixed berry smoothie produced flavanol levels similar to the capsule control.

From Science Daily ● May 24, 2026

A furious, red-faced Alfonso asked his workers who was responsible, while at his side, Mariana pinched her lips together as if she’d just eaten a green berry.

From "The Queen of Water" by Laura Resau

Berry has chased gains in megacap tech names including Nvidia, Amazon and SpaceX.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026

Many, like 41-year-old Kunal Berry, are buoyed by the success of the artificial-intelligence trade and optimistic about the technology’s potential to transform business and the economy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026

Patrick Baghdaserians, an attorney for Martinez, told The Times last week the welfare and safety of Berry and Martinez’s child remains paramount.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026

Four of the party's five MPs - Ellie Chowns, Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer, Sian Berry - had publicly opposed it, with Denyer arguing it could risk "alienating a significant proportion of Jewish people".

From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026

He dug in his backpack and pulled out the papers, the same papers he’d showed us the night before at the kitchen table, as Berry slowly got down on the ground.

From "All American Boys" by Jason Reynolds

His team investigated urolithin A, or UroA, a naturally occurring microbial metabolite produced by gut bacteria after the digestion of foods including pomegranates, walnuts and berries.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 17, 2026

Most traditional foodstuffs, such as nuts or zereshk -- small red berries used in Persian cuisine -- remain available, however.

From Barron's ● Sep. 13, 2026

He's already been out in his kayak to catch fish, he's been foraging for mushrooms and berries, and he's enjoyed vegetables from his neighbour's croft.

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

We shared stories with a gooseberry-pie baker, whose mother had trimmed the berries, much as my mother had in her last years.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 6, 2026

“We foraged for berries, boiled roots, made traps to kill beavers. Hunted squirrels. Fished.”

From "Will’s Race for Home" by Jewell Parker Rhodes

The floral arrangements used “English foliage — holly, berried ivy and red skimmia,” and the tree was to be recycled to be viewed by holiday visitors to Windsor.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 25, 2022

In fall, masses of winter pansies, ornamental kale and berried shrubs replace tender plantings in the massive window box and containers, while the trim boxwood hedges and clipped hollies carry the show throughout winter.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 27, 2021

Furnished with berries; consisting of a berry; baccate; as, a berried shrub.

From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Noah Webster

In order that the female lobsters may be secured the authorities of Maine permit the fishermen to catch and sell "berried" lobsters to the Commission.

From The Lobster Fishery of Maine Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 by John N. (John Nathan) Cobb

It was the day I went to the circus, and you told me not to tell daddy the cat was deadn' berried.

From The Blue Lagoon: a romance by H. De Vere (Henry De Vere) Stacpoole

They spoke most of the weather, and mentioned fishing, berrying and hunting as often as art.

From Time Magazine Archive

Of course, I’m not going to follow her, although it would be easier than playing On the Track, the game we made up when went berrying or food gathering.

From "On the Far Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George

I’m beginning to think she’s gone fishing or berrying and will not return until dusk.

From "On the Far Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George

Joe and Marly did so much berrying, what with strawberries and then red raspberries and then blackberries, that Joe said he was absolutely berried-out.

From "Miracles on Maple Hill" by Virginia Sorensen

“Let’s go berrying too, just as soon as I slip this thing into place,” Neale suggested.

From The Corner House Girls on a Tour Where they went, what they saw, and what they found by Grace Brooks Hill

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Related Words

• bean
• grain
• kernel

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