Definitions

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

  • noun An aromatic deciduous shrub (Lindera benzoin) of eastern North America, having clusters of small yellow flowers that bloom early in the spring.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A North American shrub, Lindera Benzoin, the bark and leaves of which have a spicy odor, bearing small yellow flowers very early in the spring and oval scarlet berries in late summer. See Lindera and fever-bush. Also spicewood.

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

  • noun (Bot.) Spicewood.

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

  • noun US, botany The common spicebush, Lindera benzoin, whose leaves have a distinctive strong citrusy aroma.

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

  • noun deciduous shrub of the eastern United States having highly aromatic leaves and bark and yellow flowers followed by scarlet or yellow berries
  • noun straggling aromatic shrub of southwestern United States having fragrant brown flowers
  • noun deciduous shrub of the eastern United States having highly aromatic leaves and bark and yellow flowers followed by scarlet or yellow berries

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

spice +‎ bush

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Examples

  • Fall stroll with staff horticulturist Deanne Eversmeyer featuring native plants such as American serviceberry, American yellowwood, Virginia sweetspire, spicebush, fragrant sumac, native ferns and grasses. 10 a.m.

    Green Scene: The bounty of fall includes tours, lectures and workshops Joel M. Lerner 2010

  • The caterpillars live in folded leaf shelters and eat the leaves of the sassafras or spicebush.

    A Caterpillar That Pretends to be a Fearsome Snake | Impact Lab 2010

  • Yesterday I saw a butterfly hit by a car — a spicebush swallowtail.

    Summer is already winding down 2010

  • Sheila: along those lines–this butterfly is probably a spicebush swallowtail.

    Swallowtail | clusterflock 2009

  • Brown put it in his 1971 biography, "to sing of native birds like the brown thrasher and bobolink rather than the skylark and nightingale, of the spicebush or the late-blooming fringed gentian rather than Britain's gorse or primrose."

    From Verse to Controversy -- And Fleeting Fame Wes Davis 2008

  • This is a caterpillar of the butterfly spicebush swallowtail Papilio troilus.

    Yellow caterpillar ready to go AYDIN 2007

  • Strong and healthy, he didn't mind living for weeks at a time on venison, spicebush tea, hickory nuts, and thorn apples.

    The Toughest Deer Hunter Ever 2004

  • Strong and healthy, he didn't mind living for weeks at a time on venison, spicebush tea, hickory nuts, and thorn apples.

    The Toughest Deer Hunter Ever 2004

  • While he waited he regarded a spicebush just on the other side of the fence, ice beginning to cling to the red berries.

    Cold Mountain Frazier, Charles, 1950- Cold Mountain 2003

  • While he waited he regarded a spicebush just on the other side of the fence, ice beginning to cling to the red berries.

    Cold Mountain Frazier, Charles, 1950- Cold Mountain 1997

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