straw·ber·ry
- Any of various low-growing plants of the genus Fragaria, having white flowers
and an aggregate fruit that consists of a red, fleshy, edible receptacle and numerous
seedlike fruitlets.
- The aggregate fruit of this plant.
Word History: Izaak Walton's 1655 comment, "We may say of Angling as Dr.
Boteler said of Strawberries; Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless
God never did," is perhaps the nicest use of the word strawberry in its
history. This history goes back much further in English to the Old English period when the
word is first recorded. We know that strawberry was formed during that period
from the Old English ancestors of our words straw and berry. What is not
known is why the word straw is the first part of this compound. One possibility
is that the small, one-seeded fruits on the surface of a strawberry resemble fragments of
straw.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition |
