rum cherry
- noun
- /rʌm ˈʧɛri/
- US
:
cereza negra
- Birds are especially fond of the tart fruit produced by the rum cherry.
Examples
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The rum cherry tree grows tall in the forest.
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The rum cherry thrives in forests throughout the eastern United States.
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He used rum cherry wood to craft a durable piece of furniture.
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Look at that rum cherry!
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The rum cherry produces small, black fruit that is often used to make jams and jellies.
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In late summer, the rum cherry tree is adorned with clusters of sour berries that attract wildlife.
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Farmers often cultivate the rum cherry for its flavorful fruit, which can be harvested in the fall.
Synonyms
1
3.0
A small dark red to almost black round fruit from a tree that tastes sweet
A large North American wild cherry tree with black sour fruit
A large North American tree that has small black sour fruit people can eat
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is a simple modifier + noun structure where 'rum' specifies the type or treatment of the 'cherry', so a learner who knows 'rum' (an alcoholic spirit) and 'cherry' will readily infer a cherry associated with rum (e.g., soaked or preserved in rum). This compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically for food/drink compounds, so the meaning is immediately derivable from the constituents for a B1 learner.
Etymology
Rum cherry names a large wild cherry tree with dark, sour fruit. One popular idea is that people used those sharp berries to flavor strong homemade drinks, so the tree came to be called the 'rum' cherry, which explains the name today.