🌿 A thorny shrub 🌳 A hawthorn plant

blackthorn

1 8.2

A thorny shrub from Europe and Asia with small white flowers and dark blue fruits like small plums

noun
/ˈblækˌθɔrn/

: espino negro

The blackthorn is commonly found in hedgerows, with its small white flowers blooming in spring.
blackthorn hedge
blackthorn stick

Examples

"Her father often used to hunt them out of the field with his blackthorn stick" (D 36), and he behaves badly throughout, giving her "the palpitations" (D 38).

Academic text (1991)
I presented His Royal Highness them with a blackthorn stick, and with a twinkle in his eye he asked me, now what shall I do with that young man?
That be blackthorn hill, and down the other side, there be the bog.

Thunder on the Hill (1951)
His walking stick is a heavy blackthorn with a silver ring and a bulbous handle.

Fiction book (1998)
We've struggled through brambles and blackthorn.

Fiction book (1999)
Added to this, the patrols were not allowed to use gateways or tracks because of the threat of IEDs, and this meant that much time was spent clambering over dry stone walls and forcing a way through the ubiquitous and painful blackthorn hedges.

Academic text (2011)
One day, before the First World War, when the men of one of the families, armed with pitchforks and heavy blackthorn sticks, attacked the home of the enemy, the woman of the house (bean-a'-tighe) came to the door of her cottage, and in full sight of all (including my father and me, who happened to be passing by) lifted her skirt and underclothes high above her head, displaying her naked genitals.

Academic text (2000)
In early autumn, the blackthorn produces dark bluish-black fruits that are used to make sloe gin.
Walking through the dense undergrowth, we encountered a thicket of blackthorn bushes with their sharp thorns.

Synonyms

Prunus spinosa

vsblackthorn

Specialized

9.2

A thorny bush from Europe and Asia with small dark blue fruits

is the common name used in everyday and culinary contexts

sloe

vsblackthorn

Specialized

9.9

A small thorny bush that makes dark purple sour berries used for gin

focuses on the plant itself rather than primarily on the fruit

Compounds

blackthorn liqueur

9.5

A strong sweet alcoholic drink made from the blackthorn fruit called sloes

Surface Forms

blackthorn singular

blackthorns plural

Morphology

blackthorn = black + thorn (transparent) = black + thorn

A straightforward compound of 'black' + 'thorn' denoting a thorny plant often associated with dark fruit or dark appearance, so the meaning is directly derivable.

Etymology

Blackthorn comes from the simple parts black and thorn, which mean 'dark' and 'thorn'. That's why the name fits a bush with sharp thorns and dark, plumlike fruits called sloes.