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

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

From Time Magazine Archive

“And mind nothing comes behind that woodbine,” pointing to a mass of woodbine which hung from some ash-poles, and stretched like a curtain across the view there.

From Bevis The Story of a Boy by Jefferies, Richard

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.

It is on the stalk of the woodbine which climbs up the hawthorn, and is the first in the new year—in the very darkest and blackest days—to show that life is stirring.

From Wild Life in a Southern County by Jefferies, Richard