huckleberry

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a small edible blue, black, or red berry produced by several North American shrubs

   We filled a basket with ripe huckleberry fruit beside the trail.

2. 2
   noun

   any of several shrubs in the genera Gaylussacia or Vaccinium that bear huckleberries

   A low huckleberry grew beneath the pine trees.

An American English alteration of Middle English hurtilbery or hurtleberry 'whortleberry,' ultimately related to Old English horte 'whortleberry' + berry. The altered form is recorded in North America from the seventeenth century.

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