different between berry vs fence

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b??i/, enPR: b?'ri
• Rhymes: -?ri
• Homophones: bury, Barry (in accents with the Mary–marry–merry merger)

Etymology 1

From Middle English berye, from Old English ber?e, from Proto-West Germanic *ba?i, from Proto-Germanic *bazj?.

Cognate with Saterland Frisian Bäie, West Flemish beier, German Beere, Icelandic ber, Danish bær.

The slang sense “police car” may come from the lights on the vehicles’ roofs.

Noun

berry (plural berries)

1. A small succulent fruit, of any one of many varieties.
2. (botany) A soft fruit which develops from a single ovary and contains seeds not encased in pits.
3. A coffee bean.
4. One of the ova or eggs of a fish.

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

5. (slang, US, African-American) A police car.
6. (US, slang, dated) A dollar.
   • 1921, Collier's (volume 67, page 365)

     Four rounds and Enright still on his feet and a hundred and fifty thousand berries gone if he stays two more!

Usage notes

Many fruits commonly regarded as berries, such as strawberries and raspberries, are not berries in the botanical sense, while many fruits which are berries in the botanical sense are not regarded as berries in common parlance, such as bananas and pumpkins.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (ber?)
• ? Thai: ??????? (b??-rîi)

Translations

References

Verb

berry (third-person singular simple present berries, present participle berrying, simple past and past participle berried)

1. To pick berries.

   On summer days Grandma used to take us berrying, whether we wanted to go or not.
2. To bear or produce berries.

Usage notes

• Unlikely to be used to refer to commercial harvesting of berries.

Derived terms

• berrying

Etymology 2

From Middle English ber?e, berghe, from Old English beor?e, dative form of beorg (“mountain, hill, mound, barrow”), from Proto-West Germanic *berg, from Proto-Germanic *bergaz (“mountain, hill”). More at barrow.

Alternative forms

• berye, berie

Noun

berry (plural berries)

1. (now chiefly dialectal) A mound; a barrow.

Etymology 3

From Middle English bery (“a burrow”). More at burrow.

Noun

berry (plural berries)

1. (dialectal) A burrow, especially a rabbit's burrow.
2. An excavation; a military mine.

Etymology 4

From Middle English beryen, berien, from Old English *berian (found only in past participle ?ebered (“crushed, kneaded, harassed, oppressed, vexed”)), from Proto-West Germanic *barjan, from Proto-Germanic *barjan? (“to beat, hit”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?erH- (“to rip, cut, split, grate”).

Cognate with Scots berry, barry (“to thresh, thrash”), German beren (“to beat, knead”), Icelandic berja (“to beat”), Latin feri? (“strike, hit”, verb).

Verb

berry (third-person singular simple present berries, present participle berrying, simple past and past participle berried)

1. (transitive) To beat; give a beating to; thrash.
2. (transitive) To thresh (grain).

Anagrams

• Bryer

English

Etymology

From Middle English fence, fens, short for defence, defens (“the act of defending”), from Old French defens, defense (see defence).

The sense "enclosure" arises in the mid 15th century.Also from the 15th century is use as a verb in the sense "to enclose with a fence". The generalized sense "to defend, screen, protect" arises ca. 1500. The sense "to fight with swords (rapiers)" is from the 1590s (Shakespeare).

Displaced native Old English edor.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f?ns/, [f?ns], [f?nts]
• Rhymes: -?ns

Noun

fence (countable and uncountable, plural fences)

1. A thin artificial barrier that separates two pieces of land or a house perimeter.
2. Someone who hides or buys and sells stolen goods, a criminal middleman for transactions of stolen goods.
3. (by extension) The place whence such a middleman operates.
4. Skill in oral debate.
5. (obsolete, uncountable) The art or practice of fencing.
6. A guard or guide on machinery.
7. (figuratively) A barrier, for example an emotional barrier.
8. (computing, programming) A memory barrier.

Hyponyms

• catch fence
• electric fence
• picket fence

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Pennsylvania German: Fens

Translations

See also

• wire netting
• wire gauze

Verb

fence (third-person singular simple present fences, present participle fencing, simple past and past participle fenced)

1. (transitive) To enclose, contain or separate by building fence.
2. (transitive) To defend or guard.
3. (transitive) To engage in the selling or buying of stolen goods.

   • The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

4. (intransitive, sports) To engage in the sport of fencing.
5. (intransitive, equestrianism) To jump over a fence.
6. (intransitive) To conceal the truth by giving equivocal answers; to hedge; to be evasive.
   • 1981, A. D. Hope, "His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell," A Book of Answers:

     A lady, sir, as you will find, / Keeps counsel, or she speaks her mind, / Means what she says and scorns to fence / And palter with feigned innocence.

Synonyms

• (to sell or buy stolen goods): pawn

Derived terms

• ring-fence, ringfence

Translations

Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?f?nt?s?]
• Rhymes: -?nts?
• Hyphenation: fen?ce

Noun

fence

1. dative singular of fenka
2. locative singular of fenka