briar

1 of 2

noun (1)

bri·ar ˈbrī(-ə)r

variants or less commonly brier

plural briars also briers

: a plant (such as a rose, blackberry, or greenbrier) having a usually woody and thorny or prickly stem

a thicket of briars

… head up an almost invisible trail along the left bank, through young pines and briars.

Robert F. Jones

noun (2)

variants or briar pipe

plural briars or briar pipes

: a tobacco pipe made from a woody root outgrowth of a shrub-like Mediterranean heath (Erica arborea)

He grinned again and disappeared in a great cloud of pipe smoke. I pulled out my briar and joined him.

Marshall Harrison

Spelling extracts a black briar pipe from his dinner jacket, draws his courtiers closer and says in a tiny voice, "I hate parties. What am I doing here?"

Mary Murphy

Word History

Etymology

Noun (1)

Middle English brer, brere, going back to Old English brēr, brǣr, of uncertain origin

Note: The noun briar belongs to a small set of words in which Middle English ę̄ has been raised to ī, whence [ai] in present-day English. These words are all, with the exception of briar, of French origin: friar, quire entry 1, choir entry 1, contrive, umpire entry 1, dice. See hypothesized explanations of this change in E. J. Dobson, English Pronunciation 1500-1700, 2nd edition, vol. 2, pp. 655-58.

Noun (2)

short for briar pipe, from briar "wood of the heath plant Erica arborea," borrowed (with conformation to briar entry 1) from French bruyère "the heath plant Erica arborea," going back to Old French bruiere, bruere "moorland covered with heath, the heath plant Erica arborea," going back to Vulgar Latin *brūcāria, from *brūcus "heath plant" (borrowed from Gaulish *wroikos) + Latin -āria -ary entry 1 — more at erica

Note: The meaning of the derivative *brūcāria must initially have been "place covered with *brūcus," but early on in Old French it was applied to the plant itself. The simplex *brūcus is attested as Old Occitan bruc, bru, breu, Catalan bruc, Upper Italian (Piedmont) brü, (Milan) brüg. A tenth-century botanical vocabulary (see Corpus glossariorum Latinorum vol. 3, p. 587) has the gloss brucus : ramnus [Greek rhámnos "thorny shrub"]. The treatment of the diphthong (*oi > *ū) in the passage from Celtic to Vulgar Latin is idiosyncratic; it seems unlikely to have any connection to the monophthongization of oe (> ū) in classical Latin.

First Known Use

Noun (1)

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Noun (2)

1882, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler

The first known use of briar was before the 12th century

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briar

noun (1)

noun (2)

Word History

Phrases Containing briar

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