bryony

American  

[brahy-uh-nee] / ˈbraɪ ə ni /

Or briony

noun

bryonies plural

1. any Old World vine or climbing plant belonging to the genus Bryonia, of the gourd family, yielding acrid juice having emetic and purgative properties.

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bryony British  

/ ˈbraɪənɪ /

noun

1. any of several herbaceous climbing plants of the cucurbitaceous genus Bryonia , of Europe and N Africa See also black bryony white bryony

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• bryonies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of bryony

before 1000; Middle English brionie, Old English bryōnia < Latin < Greek: a wild vine

Example Sentences

They were coming to a thicket of juniper and dog roses, tangled at ground level with nettles and trails of bryony on which the berries were now beginning to ripen and turn red.

From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams

The ditch was thick with cow parsley, hemlock and long trails of green-flowering bryony.

From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams

The white bryony, whose leaf is not unlike that of the grape, has a magical reputation, and the cottage folk believe its root to be a powerful ingredient in love potions, and also poisonous.

From Wild Life in a Southern County by Jefferies, Richard

The bryony and the honeysuckle I have already mentioned.

From The Cruise of the Land-Yacht "Wanderer" Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan by Stables, Gordon

By the alder a bryony vine that had grown there was broken and had withered, it had been snapped long since by the creature pushing through.

From Bevis The Story of a Boy by Jefferies, Richard