shrub

• (UK, US) enPR: shrŭb, IPA^(key): /ʃɹʌb/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ʌb

From Middle English schrub, schrob, (also unassibilated as scrub), from Old English *scrob (in placenames) and scrybb (“a shrub; shrubbery; underbrush”); akin to Norwegian skrubbe (“the dwarf cornel tree”).

shrub (plural shrubs)

1. A woody plant smaller than a tree, and usually with several stems from the same base.

• bush (plant)

shrub (third-person singular simple present shrubs, present participle shrubbing, simple past and past participle shrubbed)

1. (obsolete) To lop; to prune.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Anderson (1573) to this entry?)

2. (transitive, Kenyan English) To mispronounce a word by replacing its consonant sound(s) with another or others of a similar place of articulation.

   For example, /ʃɹʌb/ → /sɹʌb/

From Arabic شِرَاب‎ (širāb, “a drink, beverage”), شَرِبَ‎ (šariba, “to drink”), akin to syrup, sherbet

shrub (countable and uncountable, plural shrubs)

1. A liquor composed of vegetable acid, fruit juice (especially lemon), sugar, sometimes vinegar, and a small amount of spirit as a preservative. Modern shrub is usually non-alcoholic, but in earlier times it was often mixed with a substantial amount of spirit such as brandy or rum, thus making it a liqueur.

• Brush, bruhs, brush, burhs