sweetbrier

English

Rosa eglanteria

Alternative forms

• sweetbriar, sweet-breare (obsolete)

Etymology

sweet +‎ brier

Noun

sweetbrier (plural sweetbriers)

1. A Eurasian rose (Rosa rubiginosa, syn. Rosa eglanteria), having prickly stems, fragrant leaves, pink flowers and red hips
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Yet both in flowres doe live, and love thee beare, / The one a Paunce, the other a sweet-breare […].

   • 1942, Emily Carr, “The Blessing”, in The Book of Small:

     The mud-flats did not always smell nice although the bushes of sweet-briar on the edge of the high-water rim did their best […]

Synonyms

• eglantine