red mulberry

5.8

A North American tree that grows dark purple sweet fruit

noun
/rɛd ˈmʌlˌbɛri/

: mora roja

I love picking red mulberries in the summer.

Examples

Birds are attracted to the red mulberry tree because of its abundance of berries.
The red mulberry tree grows well in moist soil.
The red mulberry is native to eastern North America and produces sweet, dark fruit in summer.
We picked red mulberries to make homemade jam from the ripest fruit we could find.
The red mulberry tree produces sweet, dark purple berries that attract many birds.
During the summer, the red mulberry's fruits become ripe and are often picked for jams.
In early spring, the red mulberry blossoms with small, greenish flowers before producing fruit.

Synonyms

mulberry

vsred mulberry

3 3.6

A tree that produces sweet berries and has leaves eaten by silkworms

is narrower, meaning one North American species with dark purple fruit

mulberry tree

vsred mulberry

1 2.7

A tree that makes small dark fruit like blackberries

is the specific North American species with dark purple fruit

Morus rubra

vsred mulberry

Specialized

9.9

A tree from North America that makes dark purple edible berries

is the common everyday name for that same species

Surface Forms

red mulberry singular

red mulberries plural

Morphology

red + mulberry

The phrase is a straightforward adjective + noun composition: a mulberry that is red (i.e., a red-colored mulberry tree). This is a literal, compositional meaning following common cross-linguistic patterns for color + noun, so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer the referent even if they don't know the species name.

Etymology

Red mulberry is a name made of two simple words: red and mulberry. People used red because the berries are dark red or purple, and mulberry names the kind of tree. So, the phrase means 'a tree with dark, edible fruit'.