dogberry meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

dogberry

nounalso spelled Dogberry

Etymology See dogwood and berry. Compare also dog rose. Compare German Hundbeere (“bittersweet”), Ancient Greek κυνόσβατος (kunósbatos, “evergreen rose”), Lithuanian šùnobelė (“buckthorn”), Italian mela canina (“mandrake”).

The berry of the dogwood.

Clintonia borealis (yellow clintonia)

Dogberry

noun

UK /ˈdɒɡbəɹi/ · US /ˈdɔɡˌbɛɹi/

Etymology From Dogberry, the name of a character in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (1600).

A pompous, foolish or self-important official.

It would be interesting to know how many village Dogberries there were like Thomas Law, the constable of Quendon, Essex, whose reaction in 1651 on being informed of a robbery was to call on the astrologer, William Hills, ‘with an intent to hear what he might say, so that he might make his search accordingly’.1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 333:

Derived terms: Dogberryism