Definitions

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

  • noun A shrub native to the cool temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere.
  • noun The berry of this shrub.

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

  • noun tart red berries similar to American cranberries but smaller
  • noun low evergreen shrub of high north temperate regions of Europe and Asia and America bearing red edible berries

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Swedish lingon, a kind of berry + berry.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

lingon +‎ berry

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Examples

Comments

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  • Nabokov insists that it is this berry from which is made the beverage Tatyana's mother serves on Onegin's first visit: "brusnichnaya voda" (which one might easily be tempted to translate "cranberry water"). In his Commentary, Nabokov wittily calls this drink lingonade.

    December 7, 2007

  • Commonly used to make jam for pancakes in Finland.

    December 7, 2007

  • Also known as:

    foxberry

    cowberry

    partridgeberry

    sparkleberry

    lowbush cranberry

    mountain cranberry

    csejka berry

    hurtleberry

    mountain bilberry

    bilbyberry*

    red whortleberry

    redberry

    Vaccinium vitis idaea

    бру�?ника

    Preiselbeerchen

    airelle (I'm a little doubtful about this, as the French-English dictionary lists bilberry and cranberry as the translation; however, the only French word given for cranberry is canneberge)

    *: madeupical

    Source: languagehat entry (and comments); Dec 24th, 2008.

    January 22, 2009

  • Also known as the Ikea berry.

    January 22, 2009

  • Cuuuute...

    This berry, though it does not suck, makes an appearance on this list.

    January 22, 2009

  • Just in case anyone is puzzled, I deleted farkleberry and whortleberry from the list in the previous comment; as they appear not to be red.

    There seems to be more than a little confusion out there as far as berry nomenclature is concerned.

    I tried to verify whether or not moss peach is another term for lingonberry, as one of the blog comments seemed to suggest. But the google search results scared me away. Though not before I found out that Peaches Geldoff has apparently supplanted Kate Moss as the face/body of Agent Provocateur, whatever that might be.

    January 22, 2009

  • Damn! Farkleberry was the best one!

    January 22, 2009

  • Who else is old enough to remember Euell Gibbons and his highbush cranberries?

    January 22, 2009

  • Tastes like wild hickory nuts!

    He died of Dutch Elm disease, you know...

    January 22, 2009

  • Chortleberry!

    January 22, 2009

  • But many parts of him were edible.

    January 23, 2009

  • ha ha!! *finally gets it*

    January 23, 2009

  • Such a young'un. ;->

    January 23, 2009

  • No, no, I recognized the commercial! I didn't recognize the name when y'all were just talking about it.

    January 23, 2009

  • Also popular with Swedes. Lingonberries, that is, not Euell Gibbons.

    January 23, 2009

  • ... What do Swedes have against Euell Gibbons?

    *joke*

    January 23, 2009

  • He eats all of their forests, that's what.

    January 24, 2009

  • c_b beat me to the punch. I was a big fan of out loud on toast with lingonberry butter.

    January 24, 2009