woodbine

American  

[wood-bahyn] / ˈwʊdˌbaɪn /

noun

1. any of several climbing vines, especially those of genera Lonicera of the honeysuckle family and Parthenocissus of the grape family.

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woodbine British  

/ ˈwuːdˌbaɪn /

noun

1. a honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum, of Europe, SW Asia, and N Africa, having fragrant creamy flowers

2. a related North American plant, L. caprifolium

3. another name for Virginia creeper

4. obsolete an Englishman

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Etymology

Origin of woodbine

First recorded before 900; Middle English wodebind(e), Old English wudubind, wudebinde, equivalent to wudu “wood” + bind “binding”; see origin at wood ¹, bind

Example Sentences

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: .

From Time Magazine Archive

Cool and resourceful, she "smells out money like a honey bee smells out woodbine."

From Time Magazine Archive

In the afternoon October’s lover takes the hill path, mica-gemmed, that leads between birches of the translucent yellow leaf and maples still green but wearing scarlet woodbine like a gypsy’s sash.

From Minstrel Weather by Storm, Marian

It was October—the carnival time of the year, When on the ground red apples lie In piles like jewels shining, And redder still on old stone walls Are leaves of woodbine twining.

From The Story of a Doctor's Telephone?Told by His Wife by Firebaugh, Ellen M.

Locust and china trees, overrun by English honeysuckle, coral, and buff woodbine, shaded the cottage, and all about the spring house clustered azaleas—white, pink, orange, scarlet—filling the quiet hollow with waves of incomparable perfume.

From A Speckled Bird by Wilson, Augusta J. Evans