DCHP-2

bearberry DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

• 1 n.

  a trailing shrub, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, found on bare, gravelly soils throughout Canada; kinnikinnik (def. 2).

  See also: jackasheypuck  kinnikinik (def. 2)  sagakomi (def. 2)  squawberry (def. 2)  

  • 1823  Bear Berry [Arbutus Uva Ursi].
  • 1877  The ground was literally covered with bearberries, the uva ursi. . .
  • 1958  The willows and the aspens, the currant bushes and the bearberries have encroached upon the town.

• 2a n.

  the insipid, red fruit of this shrub, much favored as food by bears.

  See also: sagakomi (def. 1)  

  • 1807  (1889-1890)  The fruits of this solitary region are the poire . . . bearberry, choak-berry. . . .
  • 1942  Even the flat-flavored . . . bearberry was not quite beyond praise, for we . . . felt the result of a long tea-and-flour winter.
  • 1965  . . . crimson bearberries provide flamboyant contrast to the deep green of the alpine cranberry bushes. . . .

• 2b n.

  the fruit of the red-osier dogwood.

  See also: red-osier dogwood  

  • 1820  (1823)  There is also a berry of bluish-white colour, the produce of the white cornel tree, which is named musqua-meena, bear-berry, because these animals are said to fatten on it.
  • 1946  Near the water, high-bush cranberries hung in clusters of red brilliance against a background of milk-white bearberries.

• 2c n.

  the luscious, black fruit of the Arctostaphylos alpina, a shrub of the Barren Grounds.

  • 1952  [We find] some of the tundra's luscious fruits, such as bearberry, Arctic raspberry, and the baked apple.

• 3 n.

  the leaf of the bearberry bush, dried and used in making Indian tobacco.

  See also: bearberry leaf  

  • 1927  He filled it with Indian tobacco, known as kinnikinick or bearberry, lighted the calumet of peace with a coal. . . .