1. The fruit of the bramble (Rubus fruticosus) and its varieties. This being almost the commonest wild fruit in England is spoken of proverbially as the type of what is plentiful and little prized.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, Voc., 139. Flaui, uel mori, blaceberian.
c. 1250. Gloss., ibid. 558. Murum, blakeberie.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 1809. Blake-beries þat on breres growen.
a. 1420. Occleve, De Reg. Princ., 4715. He settethe not therby a blakberie.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind., III. viii. (Arb.), 172. Bramble busshes bearynge blacke berries or wylde raspes.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. iv. 265. If Reasons were as plentie as Black-berries, I would giue no man a Reason vpon compulsion.
1713. Gay, Past., vi. Blackberries they pluck’d in deserts wild.
1852. Gard. Chron., 3. A real novelty … in the form of what is called a White Blackberry.
b. attrib.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, VI. iv. 661. The Bramble or Blacke berie bushe.
1580. Baret, Alv., B 1111. Bramble, the blacke bery tree.
1846. Sowerby, Brit. Bot. (1864), III. 164. Who … has not in his day, been a Blackberry-gatherer?
1847. Halliwell, Dict., Blackberry summer, the fine weather … at the latter end of September and the beginning of October, when the blackberries ripen. Hants.
1880. Besant & Rice, Seamy Side, xxiii. 290. ‘Real jam, blackberry-jam.’
2. The trailing shrub that bears this fruit; the bramble.
1579. Langham, Gard. Health (1633). Bramble breer or Blackberry.
1688. R. Holme, Acad. Armorie, II. 119. Spinous or thorny shrubs … Bramble, Blackberry, Rose.
1849. Mrs. Somerville, Phys. Geog., II. xxvi. 163. Of the seven species of bramble which grow at the Cape, one is the Common English bramble or blackberry.
3. Now, in the north of England and south of Scotland, the Black Currant (Ribes nigrum), the ‘blackberry’ of sense 1 being there called ‘Brambleberry’; formerly in some localities the Bilberry, or Blaeberry; also, according to some, but perhaps erroneously, the sloe or fruit of the Blackthorn.
1567. Maplet, Gr. Forest. The blackberie tree is after his sort bushy bearing that fruite that eftsones refresheth the Shepherde.
1597. Gerard, Herbal (1633), 1417. We in England [call them] Worts, Whortleberries, Black-berries, Billberries.
1721. Bailey, Black-berries … the Berries of the Black-thorn.
1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), II. Vaccinium, a blackberry, as some say.
1852. Gard. Chron., 54. In speaking of blackberries about Kelso, black currants are understood.
1885. Scot. Border Rec., 6 June. The red currant and blackberries have suffered somewhat.
