Sloe

//ˈsloʊ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The small, astringent, wild fruit of the blackthorn (Prunus spinosa).

    "There is also a dryness in the mouth from the increased action of the absorbent vessels, when a sloe or a crab-apple are masticated..."

  2. 2
    small sour dark purple fruit of especially the Allegheny plum bush wordnet
  3. 3
    The tree Prunus spinosa.
  4. 4
    wild plum of northeastern United States having dark purple fruits with yellow flesh wordnet
  5. 5
    Any of various other plants of the genus Prunus, as a shrub or small tree, Prunus alleghaniensis, bearing dark-purple fruit.
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  1. 6
    a thorny Eurasian bush with plumlike fruits wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
alleghany plumallegheny plumallegheny plumatramentousblackblack as coal

Example

More examples

"My father used to make sloe wine."

Etymology

From Middle English slo, sla, sloo, from Old English slā, slāh, from Proto-West Germanic *slaihā, from Proto-Germanic *slaihǭ, *slaihwō, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)leh₃y- (“bluish”). Doublet of Sliwa.

Related phrases

sloe ginsloe-eyedprunus spinosa

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