🫐 A small berry 🌿 A berry plant

whortleberry

9.9

A blue-black berry you can eat, like a small sour blueberry

noun
/ˈhwɔrtəlˌbɛri/

: mora

We picked a basket of whortleberries while walking through the heath.

Examples

The pie was filled with freshly gathered whortleberries from the hillside.
The whortleberry is smaller than a blueberry.
Her grandmother used to make delicious whortleberry jam every summer.
I picked some whortleberries from the bushes.
Her grandmother used to make delicious whortleberry jam every summer.
The pie was filled with freshly gathered whortleberries from the hillside.
We picked a basket of whortleberries while walking through the heath.

Synonyms

bilberry

vswhortleberry

1 7.5

A small dark blue berry like a blueberry that grows on a low bush and can be eaten

focuses on European heathland plants rather than wider regions

whinberry

vswhortleberry

Archaic

9.9

A low bush with small dark blue edible berries

is broader and covers several heathland berry plants rather than one

European blueberry

vswhortleberry

2.9

A small dark blue berry that grows wild in European forests

is usually smaller and tarter than the American variety

bog whortleberry

vswhortleberry

9.9

A small evergreen shrub with thick leaves that grows in bogs and makes edible blue or black berries

is more general and not limited to one evergreen shrub form

Compounds

bog whortleberry

9.9

A small evergreen shrub with thick leaves that grows in bogs and makes edible blue or black berries

grouse whortleberry

9.9

A small bush that grows in northwest North America and has bright red berries

Surface Forms

whortleberry singular

whortleberries plural

Morphology

whortleberry = whortle + berry (semi-transparent) = whortle + berry

The component 'berry' clearly signals a type of fruit, but 'whortle' is a rare/dialectal element whose meaning is not obvious to most learners.

Etymology

Whortleberry comes from old English wort meaning 'plant' and berry, so it literally means 'plant berry'. That's a handy image: a small, blue-black wild berry, often tart like a tiny blueberry, which is why the word names that edible fruit.