winterberry

American  

[win-ter-ber-ee] / ˈwɪn tərˌbɛr i /

noun

winterberries plural

1. any of several North American hollies of the genus Ilex, having red berries that are persistent through the winter.

2. black alder.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• winterberries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of winterberry

First recorded in 1750–60; winter + berry

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

winterberry winterberries

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

More than 100 seedlings, including pin oak, American birch, magnolias and redbuds, plus nearly 400 shrubs, including winterberry, northern bayberry, witch hazel, highbush blueberry and azaleas, will be planted, he said.

From Washington Post ● May 2, 2017

Azaleas, mountain laurel, blueberry, huckleberry, viburnum, dogwood, hayberry, sweet fern, low shadbush, winterberry, chokecherry, and wild plum are dying under the chemical barrage.

From The New Yorker ● Jan. 3, 2017

But by Thanksgiving, the critters denude my winterberry shrubs of their brilliant scarlet berries.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2015

I dried great bunches of this, and hung them from the roof of the tree room together with the leaves of winterberry.

From "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George

And just past the children’s garden, she lingered to admire some winterberries, which appeared scarlet and orange against the gray sky, and a Norwegian spruce that seemed to be extending a branch to her.

From New York Times ● Jan. 28, 2022

But the winterberries you see at the garden center now may look like little more than a nursery pot of sticks and tiny leaves, as will powerful late-season native perennials like asters and goldenrods.

From New York Times ● Apr. 21, 2021

Robins and catbirds will compete for plump, vermilion winterberries.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2017

Inside the City walls the merchants had decorated their shops with pine boughs and winterberries, and the bright sunlight reflected off freshly polished shop windows.

From "Ash" by Malinda Lo

Then with that he began to put wreaths of the orange and red winterberries and sprays of wych hazel and bits of exquisite ivy, one after the other, into her hands.

From Hills of the Shatemuc by Warner, Susan