chokecherry

English

A blooming chokecherry tree.

Alternative forms

• choke cherry

Etymology

choke +‎ cherry, so called from the extreme astringency of the fresh fruit.

Noun

chokecherry (plural chokecherries)

1. Any of several American wild cherry trees, especially Prunus virginiana.
   • 1981, Bradford Angier, Field Guide to Medicinal Wild Plants:

     The youngster-loved chokecherry grows both as a bushy shrub and as a tree seldom higher than 22 feet, its branches bending with clusters of darkening red or blackish purple berrylike drupes . . .

2. The fruit of this plant.
   • 2013, Philipp Meyer, The Son, Simon & Schuster, published 2014, page 72:

     There were handfuls of chokecherries for dessert and a lemonade made from sumac.

Translations

tree

• Cahuilla: 'atut
• Catalan: cirerer de Virgínia m
• Cheyenne: ménó'e, vénôho'kôhtse
• German: Virginische Traubenkirsche f
• Navajo: kʼįįshzhíní
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: virginiahegg m

• Swedish: virginiahägg c
• Ukrainian: черемха (uk) f (čeremxa) (Canada [by analogy with European bird cherry])

fruit

• Blackfoot: pákkii'p
• Cahuilla: 'atut
• Ukrainian: черемха (uk) f (čeremxa) (Canada [by analogy with European bird cherry])

See also

• Virginia bird cherry
• bitter-berry
• bird cherry
• black cherry