ground cherry
1
8.4
- noun
- /ˈɡraʊnd ˈʧɛri/
:
cereza de tierra
- At the market, I discovered ground cherries for the first time and couldn't resist buying a whole basket.
- ground cherries grow
Examples
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So things like tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes, Peppers, tomatillos or ground cherries, those are your Solan NSA crops.
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The farmer planted ground cherries in his garden, excited for the harvest in late summer.
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In her favorite recipe, she makes a pie filled with sweet ground cherries and a flaky crust.
Synonyms
A small plant with orange edible fruit inside a papery husk
A one-year plant with round yellow berries inside a paper-like husk, often grown for decoration or fruit
A small garden plant with round yellow berries inside a papery husk
A small plant that makes purple fruits you can eat, like tiny tomatoes
A small round fruit like a green tomato with a thin papery case
A plant with orange paper-like husks around its small fruits, often grown for decoration
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is partly compositional: 'cherry' conveys a small round fruit and 'ground' suggests low-growing or at ground level, so a learner who knows both words could plausibly infer it is a small fruit found near the ground. However, the precise botanical meaning — a Physalis with a papery husk that is not a true cherry — is not derivable from the constituents, and many languages use different names, so the expression is not fully transparent.
Etymology
Ground cherry comes from the plant's small, cherry-like fruit that grows close to the ground inside a thin paper husk. The words ground (it grows low) and cherry (the fruit looks like a tiny cherry) explain the name, so it simply means this small 'fruit' that grows near the earth.