huckleberry
verbEtymology Probably an alteration of Middle English hurtilbery (“whortleberry”). American English from 1660s.
1
To pick huckleberries.
- Related terms
- huckle
huckleberry
nounUS /ˈhʌkl̩ˌbɛɹi/ · UK /ˈhʌkl̩b(ə)ɹi/
Etymology Probably an alteration of Middle English hurtilbery (“whortleberry”). American English from 1660s.
1
A small round fruit of a dark blue or red color, of several plants in the related genera Vaccinium and Gaylussacia.
- I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
2
A shrub growing this fruit.
3
A small amount, a short distance, as in the phrase huckleberry above a persimmon.
- Porter preferred prose to poetry. Prose seemed to him to be a concrete, practical form of expression. But poetry, as he informed a poet who signed his name “Evergreen,” was “a huckleberry beyond us.”1967, Richard Boyd Hauck, The Literary Content of the New York Spirit of the Times, 1831-1856, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, page 88:
4
Slang A person of little consequence.
- 1999, Paul Lieberstein, "De-Kahnstructing Henry" (King of the Hill TV episode} You got such a bug in your bonnet about phones? Check this out. I call France on this phone whenever I want. France, Europe, huckleberry.
- Derived terms
- above one's huckleberry, bear huckleberry, black huckleberry, blue huckleberry, box huckleberry, bush huckleberry, California huckleberry, dwarf huckleberry, evergreen huckleberry, fool's huckleberry, garden huckleberry, hairy-twig huckleberry, he-huckleberry, highbush huckleberry, huckleberry above a persimmon, huckleberry above one's persimmon, huckleberry oak, I'm your huckleberry, red huckleberry, squaw huckleberry, tree huckleberry, winter huckleberry, woolly huckleberry