Forms: 6–7 anburie, 7– anbury, ambury; also anberry, nanberry. [Deriv. doubtful; ambury has been assumed by some to be the earlier form, and taken as a corrupt descendant of OE. ampre, ompre; but the latter regularly survives in the dialects as AMPER, app. quite unconnected in sense with this. Ambury appears to be a phonetic variant of anbury (as in im-brue, em-balm, Stam-ford), and this perhaps = ang-berry, f. OE. ang- ‘pain, suffering,’ as in ang-nail (AGNAIL), and OE. ang-seta carbuncle, pimple. For berry cf. strawberry applied to a birth-mark. In It. associated in name with ‘mulberry.’ Cf. ANGLEBERRY.]
1. A soft tumor or spongy wart on horses and oxen.
1598. Florio, Moro … a mulberie tree; also a wart in a horse called an Anburie. [Also at Selfo.]
1607. Topsell, Four-footed Beasts (1673), 327. Of an Anbury.
1614. Markham, Husb. (1623), 82. The Anbury is a bloudy wart on any part of a Horses body. Ibid. (1617), Caval., VII. 84. Anbury. Ibid. (1631), Way to Wealth (1668), I. lxii. 66. Anbury.
1670. MS. Acct. Bk. of G. Norton of Disforth. Pd for takeing of 3 anberryes of 2 oxen, 3s.
1696. Phillips, Ambury, a Disease in Horses, which causes ’em to break forth in spungy Tumors full of hot Blood and Matter.
c. 1720. W. Gibson, Farrier’s Guide, II. l. (1738), 192. Anburies and other encysted Tumors require a peculiar treatment.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., Anbury, a kind of Wen, or spungy Wart, growing upon any part of a Horse’s Body, full of Blood.
1775. T. Wallis, Farrier’s Dict., Anbury or Ambury.
1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell). The ambury (in horses), Verruca spongiosa sanguine plena.
1785. Sportsman’s Dict., Anbury or Ambury.
1816. James, Mil. Dict., 13. Anbury.
1882. E. Peacock (in letter). Our farriers and farmers here [North-west Lincolnshire] always call these things Nanberrys.
2. A diseased affection of the roots of turnips and allied plants.
1750. W. Ellis, Mod. Husb.-man, IV. i. 27. That common destructive turnip disease … in the sandy grounds of Norfolk … there called Anbury. [Also called] Fingers-and-toes.
1815. Kirby & Spence, Entomol. (1843), I. xiv. 383. From the knob-like galls on turnips called in some places the ambury I have bred another of these weevils.
1833. Penny Cycl., I. 504/2. Cabbages or turnips whose roots are infected with anbury.
1839. Rees, Encycl. Agric., 861. The forked excrescences [in turnips] known as fingers and toes in some places, and as the anbury in others.
1878. R. Thompson, Gard. Assist. (ed. Moore), x. 279/2. The anbury has been attributed to the agency of insects, but these are now generally considered to be a consequence, and not the cause, of the malformation.
