Blackberry

//ˈblækbɛɹi// noun, verb, slang

noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A fruit-bearing shrub of the aggregate species Rubus fruticosus and some hybrids.
  2. 2
    A wireless handheld device, a cross between a cellphone and a mobile email appliance and Internet-capable PDA, marketed by BlackBerry Limited.

    "Knowing that DA, Inc. was using BlackBerrys, the CEO of the competition hired an underground hacker to come up with a way to thwart the competition."

  3. 3
    large sweet black or very dark purple edible aggregate fruit of any of various bushes of the genus Rubus wordnet
  4. 4
    The soft fruit borne by this shrub, formed of a black (when ripe) cluster of drupelets.

    "Here at the creek, a ways off from the trail, we have blackberries for now, not as fat and sweet as they get, but I like them tart, with that little bit of red still at their tops, or if they’re just a little hard and not so soft they come off when you pull at them and leave your fingers stained."

  5. 5
    bramble with sweet edible black or dark purple berries that usually do not separate from the receptacle wordnet
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    Any Rubus berry that is black or blackish; the plant that produces it. broadly, informal
  2. 7
    The blackcurrant. UK, dialectal
Verb
  1. 1
    To gather or forage for blackberries.

    "She had gone up into the tower alone and left them blackberrying in the sun"

  2. 2
    To send a text message or e-mail with a BlackBerry device.

    ""I BlackBerried a sort of risque joke message to this friend of mine — it was totally a joke — but, um, I accidentally sent it to two hundred strangers. […]"

  3. 3
    pick or gather blackberries wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bramblebrambleberryberryblackberry bushbramblefruit

Example

More examples

"Why don't we make a blackberry cake?"

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English blakberie, blakeberie (“brambleberry”), from Old English blacu berġe, blæcberġe (attested in plural blaca berġan, equivalent to black + berry.

Etymology 2

Brand name, from the resemblance of the keyboard's buttons to the skin of a fruit.

Related phrases

Armenian blackberryCalifornia blackberryChehalem blackberryEnslen's blackberryHimalayan blackberryPacific blackberryblackberry lilyblackberry winterknee-high blackberryplenty as blackberriessand blackberrye mail

More for "blackberry"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.