whimberry
/ˈʍɪmˌbɛɹi/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
22
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Another variable species: when fed upon whimberry or cowberry it is a most distinct-looking insect, often with the white patches placed in a triangle, one on the disk, one on the hind margin, and the usual one: no band."
- "The lovely pink bloom of the whimberry stalk drops on the turf as the inner part knits itself into hard, green, beady fruit, whilst the leafage changes from a soft green to yellowish brown."
- "She made whimberry tarts and we ate them with thick, yellow cream until we were tight as drums."
Etymology
From earlier winberry, a variant of wineberry with regular shortening of the first vowel before a consonant cluster (in wineberry this was prevented or reversed due to analogy). Wineberry is derived from Middle English winberie, wineberie (“grape; type of berry”), from Old English wīnberġe, wīnberie (“grape”, literally “wine-berry”), from Proto-West Germanic *wīnabaʀi, from Proto-Germanic *wīnabasją (“grape; wineberry”), from *wīną (“wine”) (from Latin vīnum (“wine”), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weh₁y- (“to twist, wind; etc.”), referring to the vine) + *bazją (“berry”) (further etymology unknown). The assimilation of /nb/ to /mb/ seen in some forms is to be expected (compare hemp from Old English henep). Other forms show the influence of unrelated words; the consonantism of forms with initial wh- is probably due to the influence of whin (“furze, gorse (Ulex europaeus); similar prickly plant”), while windberry clearly represents remodelling as wind + berry.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈʍɪmˌbɛɹi/
- British English: /ˈʍɪmbəɹi/
Usage
- British usage