From Middle Englishstrawbery, strauberi, from Old Englishstrēawberġe, corresponding to straw + berry.
Of various theories advanced to explain the name, the two most plausible are:[1]
from the fact that wild strawberries grow on stalk-like runners, compare Norwegianstråbær (“European cranberry”, which grows in a similar way);
from the practice, still common in parts of Europe, of gathering strawberries by stringing them on a straw or stalk (because wild strawberries melt quickly when gathered in a bucket).
Pronunciation
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(UK) IPA(key): /ˈstɹɔːb(ə)ɹi/
(US) IPA(key): /ˈstɹɔˌbɛɹi/
(cot–caught merger) IPA(key): /ˈstɹɑˌbɛɹi/
Audio (California):
(file)
Noun
[edit]
strawberry (countable and uncountable, plural strawberries)
The sweet, usually red, edible accessory fruit of certain plants of the genus Fragaria. They went to pick strawberries today.
2019 September 24, Jessie Yeung, quoting Pope Francis, “Pope Francis loves nouns but is ‘allergic’ to adjectives”, in CNN[2], archived from the original on 27 September 2019:Communication is a kind of beauty, he said – and “beauty manifests itself from the noun itself, without strawberries on the cake.”
2022 May 9, Casey Barber, “Strawberry season has arrived. Here are tips for enjoying spring’s sweetest treat”, in CNN[3], archived from the original on 4 July 2022:Is there a sweeter time of year than strawberry season? As soon as the trees start bursting into pink buds, the first strawberries can’t be far behind at the farmers market.
Any plant of the genus Fragaria (that bears such fruit). She has the best strawberry patch I've ever seen.
1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 170:He told his father, and said it would be just suitable work for him to run about fields and woods amongst the strawberry hills after a flock of hares, and now and then lie down and take a nap on some sunny hill.
The berry of the strawberry tree (Arbutus)
A dark pinkish red color, like that of the fruit; strawberry red. strawberry:
(rare) Something resembling a strawberry, especially a reddish bruise, birthmark, or infantile hemangioma (naevus). strawberry marks
2024 February 20, Fiona Vera-Gray, quoting Almina, “‘Everything is hairless’: what 100 women taught me about porn and body confidence”, in The Guardian[4], →ISSN:I have stretch marks and strawberry legs [follicles or blocked pores that appear as black dots][sic]; discoloration all over my body.
(US, slang) A prostitute who exchanges sexual services for crack cocaine.
1987, “Dope Man”, in N.W.A. and the Posse, performed by N.W.A:Come home and see her mouth on the dopeman's dick / Strawberry, just look and you'll see her
1992, Kathleen Boyle, Homeless crack cocaine abusers, page 40:[…] infamous in Los Angeles through media reports: the crack houses and "strawberries" (women who exchange sex for crack) […]
1995, B.G. Knocc Out & Dresta, “Compton Hoe”, in Real Brothas[5]:I'm makin mo' deals than a strawberry mightI'll lick your clit, if you suck my pipe
1997, Peter Collier, David Horowitz, The Race Card, page 91:The desperate addiction associated with the drug has made "strawberries" — prostitutes who work for crack — fixtures of the […]
A butt plug with one end shaped like a strawberry fruit.
2025 November 7, Alessandra Schade, quoting Stella Barey, “‘We’re sick of the OnlyFans model’: Stella Barey’s porn site lets gen Z sex workers have a life”, in The Guardian[6]:When Barey decided in 2020 to pursue porn full-time, she did not imagine that at 28 she would spend more time hunched over a desk – not in the fun way – making flow charts, scheduling Zoom calls, and sending pitch decks. “I’m at my happiest when I’m making a video like putting a strawberry in my butt and pushing it out,” she says. “Now I’m on calls all day and I have tech neck.”
Synonyms
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earthberry(rare)
strawb(informal, rare)
Hypernyms
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fruit
berry
Meronyms
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(fruit):anthocyanin
Derived terms
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alpine strawberry (Fragaria vesca)
barren strawberry (Potentilla sterilis or Waldsteinia fragarioides)
beach strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis)
bog strawberry (marsh cinquefoil, Comarum palustre)
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations. Translations to be checked
Containing or having the flavor of strawberries. I'd like a large strawberry shake.
1941 May 8, Chicago Daily Tribune, volume C, number 110, page 8:We sing you a song of the strawberriest Strawberry Ice Cream on earth.
1948 May 5, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, volume 100, number 243, St. Louis, Mo., page 3D:At any rate, you will agree with me that this is the “strawberriest tastin’ ” pie that you’ve ever tasted.
1961 June, McCall’s, volume LXXXVIII, number 9, page 47:Sixty seconds of boiling, and you’ll be admiring the strawberriest strawberry jam you ever tasted.
1967, Basil Cottle, The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames, Penguin Books, published 1969, page 109:Fraser Recorded in Scotland in mid-1100s as de Frisselle, de Freseliere, de Fresel, as if from a place in France, and Sir Simon F— (executed 1306) is referred to as Simond Frysel; first element ?‘ash tree’ of, the –er ?to make it ‘strawberrier’ – a pun on the three silver cinquefoils or fraises in their armorials.
1968 March, Ladies’ Home Journal, volume LXXXV, Philadelphia, Pa.: The Curtis Publishing Company, page 122:With at least 26 berries like these in every jar like this, how must Kraft Pure Strawberry Preserves taste? The strawberriest best!
1973, Glenn Andrews, Impromptu Cooking, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, →ISBN, page 216:And your strawberry ice cream can be the strawberriest and your peach ice cream the peachiest.
1975 fall, sue ellen farmer, The Student, page thirty-seven, column 2:lessons exist because frozen strawberries in store are easier to pick but wild strawberries taste strawberrier.
1978, Barbara [Halloran] Gibbons, The International Slim Gourmet Cookbook, Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 324:My strawberriest of strawberry sauces was simply strawberries, whirred until chunky in the blender, then spooned over vanilla ice cream (or, in this case, low-fat ice milk).
1979 June 5, Family Circle, page 41:Now Jell-O(BRAND)® Strawberry Flavor Gelatin tastes even Strawberrier.
1982, Barbara [Halloran] Gibbons, Slim Gourmet Sweets and Treats, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 11:When used to sweeten out-of-season California strawberries, the berries are not only sweeter but “strawberrier,” with a flavor more like home-grown or field-ripened fruit.
1998, Les Fox, Sue Fox, The Beanie Baby Handbook, West Highland Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 161:Kiwi, Kiwi, chirping bright / In the forests of the night / Only a Kiwi could be merrier / About shortcake so strawberrier!
2000, Nigella Lawson, How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking, London: Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, page 347:It occurred to me when I was last making the strawberries in dark syrup from How to Eat that there was no reason why I couldn’t use the balsamic vinegar – which provides the darkness and really does seem to make the strawberries strawberrier – when making jam.
2004 May, Sunset, page 127:It’s the strawberriest shortcake ever.
2005, Rowan Clifford, Rodeo Ron and His Milkshake Cows[7], Borzoi Books, →ISBN:Down leaped Ron and milked the frothiest, fruitiest, strawberriest milkshake anybody had ever tasted.
2009, Annette Yates, Ice Cream Made Easy: Homemade Recipes for Ice Cream Machines, Right Way, →ISBN, page 39:“The strawberriest ice cream I have ever tasted!” was the verdict of my daughter Lindsay.
2011, Hartley Pool, Stranger in Taiwan, Revenge Ink, →ISBN, page 77:Mind you, I have to admit they were three of the strawberriest looking strawberries I have ever seen.
2013, Caroline Green, Hold Your Breath, Piccadilly Press, →ISBN, page 125:It was the strawberriest strawberry ever.
2013 January, Front, number 177, page 38:HANNAH SAYS: “Wow, these are incredibly juicy. These are the strawberriest things in the world. They’re more strawberry[-]ish than actual strawberries. They’re incredible!”
2022 June 9, Daniel Neman, “Strawberry spectacular”, in Hartford Courant, volume CLXXXVI, section 4, page 4, column 1:Right now, strawberries are their strawberriest.
Flavored with ethyl methylphenylglycidate, an artificial compound which is said to resemble the taste of strawberries.
Of a color similar to the color of strawberry-flavoured products. The strawberry lipstick matched his outfit.
2006, Ida Liberkowski, Cynthia Malizia, Along the Amalfi Drive, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 282:They are, at once, beautiful and curious, with their translucent white skin and strawberriest blond hair, looking like a group of Wagner’s Valkyrie lost in a Puccini opera.
strawberry (third-person singular simple present strawberries, present participle strawberrying, simple past and past participle strawberried)
(intransitive) To gather strawberries.
1994, New England Review, volume 16, page 35:We strawberried in Michigan woods with our fat nanny, and in spring we gathered sand dollars on Daytona, passed smiling into Kodachrome.
(intransitive) To turn a dark pinkish-red.
1986, Les Whitten, Sometimes a Hero, page 352:My hips and elbows were strawberrying painfully.
See also
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arbutus
Carolina allspice
hautboy
redsedit
blood red
brick red
burgundy
cardinal
carmine
carnation
cerise
cherry
cherry red
Chinese red
cinnabar
claret
crimson
damask
fire brick
fire engine red
flame
flamingo
fuchsia
garnet
geranium
gules
hot pink
incarnadine
Indian red
magenta
maroon
misty rose
nacarat
oxblood
pillar-box red
pink
Pompeian red
poppy
raspberry
red violet
rose
rouge
ruby
ruddy
salmon
sanguine
scarlet
shocking pink
stammel
strawberry
Turkey red
Venetian red
vermilion
vinaceous
vinous
violet red
wine
References
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^ Fridell, Staffan; Svanberg, Ingvar (2024), “On the etymology of strawberry”, in Studia Neophilologica[1], volume 96, number 2, pages 303–310
“strawberry”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “strawberry”, in The Century Dictionary[…], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
strawberry on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Fragaria on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
Category:Fragaria on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
“strawberry n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present
strawberry on Wikipedia.Wikipedia 
Fragaria on Wikispecies.Wikispecies 
Category:Fragaria on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons 
