BRIER

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does brier mean? 

• BRIER (noun)
  The noun BRIER has 5 senses:

1. tangled mass of prickly plants

2. a thorny stem or twig

3. Eurasian rose with prickly stems and fragrant leaves and bright pink flowers followed by scarlet hips

4. a very prickly woody vine of the eastern United States growing in tangled masses having tough round stems with shiny leathery leaves and small greenish flowers followed by clusters of inedible shiny black berries

5. evergreen treelike Mediterranean shrub having fragrant white flowers in large terminal panicles and hard woody roots used to make tobacco pipes

  Familiarity information: BRIER used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BRIER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Tangled mass of prickly plants

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

brier; brier patch; brierpatch

Hypernyms ("brier" is a kind of...):

botany; flora; vegetation (all the plant life in a particular region or period)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A thorny stem or twig

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("brier" is a kind of...):

branchlet; sprig; twig (a small branch or division of a branch (especially a terminal division); usually applied to branches of the current or preceding year)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Eurasian rose with prickly stems and fragrant leaves and bright pink flowers followed by scarlet hips

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

briar; brier; eglantine; Rosa eglanteria; sweetbriar; sweetbrier

Hypernyms ("brier" is a kind of...):

rose; rosebush (any of many shrubs of the genus Rosa that bear roses)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A very prickly woody vine of the eastern United States growing in tangled masses having tough round stems with shiny leathery leaves and small greenish flowers followed by clusters of inedible shiny black berries

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

briar; brier; bullbrier; catbrier; greenbrier; horse-brier; horse brier; Smilax rotundifolia

Hypernyms ("brier" is a kind of...):

vine (a plant with a weak stem that derives support from climbing, twining, or creeping along a surface)

Holonyms ("brier" is a member of...):

genus Smilax; Smilax (sometimes placed in Smilacaceae)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Evergreen treelike Mediterranean shrub having fragrant white flowers in large terminal panicles and hard woody roots used to make tobacco pipes

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

briar; brier; Erica arborea; tree heath

Hypernyms ("brier" is a kind of...):

erica; true heath (any plant of the genus Erica)

Meronyms (parts of "brier"):

briarroot (hard woody root of the briar Erica arborea)

 Context examples 

He still wore the fine broadcloth suit in which he had fulfilled his mission, but it was bitterly the worse for wear, daubed with clay and torn with the sharp briers of the wood.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)