sweetbrier
English
[edit]
Alternative forms
[edit]- sweetbriar, sweet-breare (obsolete)
Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]sweetbrier (plural sweetbriers)
- A Eurasian rose (Rosa rubiginosa, syn. Rosa eglanteria), having prickly stems, fragrant leaves, pink flowers and red hips
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- Yet both in flowres doe live, and love thee beare, / The one a Paunce, the other a sweet-breare […].
- 1942, Emily Carr, “The Blessing”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC:
- The mud-flats did not always smell nice although the bushes of sweet-briar on the edge of the high-water rim did their best […]