Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various shrubs or small trees of the genus Sambucus, having clusters of small white flowers and small red or purplish-black berrylike fruit.
  • noun The fruit of certain of these plants, used to make wine or preserves.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The purplish-black drupaceous fruit of the elder, Sambucus nigra and S. Canadensis, having an acidulous and sweetish taste, and used for making a kind of wine. The inspissated juice is employed as an aperient and a diuretic.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) The berrylike drupe of the elder. That of the Old World elder (Sambucus nigra) and that of the American sweet elder (S. Canadensis) are sweetish acid, and are eaten as a berry or made into wines or jellies.
  • noun the European variety of elder (see 3rd elder), a common black-fruited shrub or small tree of Europe and Asia; the fruit is used for wines and jellies.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun elder; a shrub or tree of the genus Sambucus
  • noun the small, edible, purplish-black fruit of this plant used in cooking and to flavour drinks etc

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun berrylike fruit of an elder used for e.g. wines and jellies
  • noun a common shrub with black fruit or a small tree of Europe and Asia; fruit used for wines and jellies

Etymologies

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Examples

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  • "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

    - Monty Python and the Holy Grail

    February 23, 2008

  • After kayaking today I picked a few pounds of elderberries. The juice extractor reduced these to 2.5 quarts of pure mountain goodness. Tomorrow I'll make a little pancake syrup and some jelly.

    August 30, 2011