bryony

American  

[brahy-uh-nee] / ˈbraɪ ə ni /

Or briony

noun

plural

bryonies

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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Etymology

Origin of bryony

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

Example Sentences

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

From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams

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 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

And, if the good gossips' eyes do not deceive them, all the Miss Johnsons, and both the officers, go wandering off into the lanes, where bryony wreaths still twine about the brambles.

From Jackanapes by Sacker, Amy

Dark-brown hair in no great abundance, always slipping out of its confinement and straggling, now on her forehead, and now on her shoulders, like wandering bines of bryony.

From The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies by Besant, Walter, Sir