red currant
- noun
- /rɛd ˈkɜrənt/
:
grosella roja
- For dessert, she prepared a delicious pie filled with red currants and served it with vanilla ice cream.
- red currants and gooseberries
- red currants and raspberries
- red currants and strawberries
Examples
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In summer, I love to make a tart using fresh red currants picked from the garden.
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The recipe called for a cup of fresh red currants to add tartness to the sauce.
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Baskets of red currants were on display at the farmers' market in early summer.
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She spread red currant jelly on her morning toast for a burst of flavor.
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I love red currants in my yogurt.
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The red currant bush thrives in sunny spots.
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The red currants added a delightful sourness to the fruit salad I made for the picnic.
Synonyms
3
2.8
A small tart berry, often red or black, that people use for jam
A European bush that grows small red berries used for eating and making jam
A small garden bush that produces tart red berries for cooking and jam
How Sour
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: it refers to the red color of the currant fruit, so combining 'red' (a color) with 'currant' (a small red berry) yields a predictable shade name. Naming colors after objects or foods (e.g., lemon yellow, olive green, cherry red) is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will very likely infer this meaning.
Etymology
Red currant is the name of a small, tart berry and the bush that makes it. One popular story says the word currant first named small dried grapes from a place called Corinth, and people later used the same word for this bright red berry, so today red currant means 'a small, sour, bright red berry'.