BRIER • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Brier

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/brˈaɪər/ Listen

noun

Briar, Brier n.

1.

A plant with a slender woody stem bearing stout prickles; especially, species of Rosa, Rubus, and Smilax.

2.

Fig.: Anything sharp or unpleasant to the feelings. "The thorns and briers of reproof."

Brier root, the root of the southern Smilax laurifolia and Smilax Walteri; used for tobacco pipes. See also 2nd brier.

Cat brier, Green brier, several species of Smilax (Smilax rotundifolia, etc.)

Sweet brier (Rosa rubiginosa). See Sweetbrier.

Yellow brier, the Rosa Eglantina.

Brier n.

1.

The white heath Erica arborea.

2.

A smoking pipe made of the root of the brier (1). Note: Brierroot seems to have been used formerly as a term meaning root of the Smilax laurifolia and is now defined as root of the Erica arborea. Not clear when this changed. PJC.

See images of 'Brier'

Etymology of 'Brier'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Brier" Quotes from Famous Books

... of the village, And the house in the maple-gloom, And the porch with the honeysuckles And the sweet-brier all abloom. ...

— Poems • William D. Howells

... pleading with me to accept them and their promises; yet I carelessly passed them by. I see worse. I see the rents in the hedge, where I forced my wilful way into forbidden fields, and only regained my path after weary wandering, brier-torn, and none the better for my folly. Lost faces come before me which I might have gladdened oftener. Voices sound in my ear whose tones I might have made happier if I would. Withheld sympathy rises up before me deploring its ...

— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... to yonder howe, bonnie Peggie, O! Down ayont the gowan knowe, bonnie Peggie, O! When the siller burn rins clear, When the rose blooms on the brier, An' where there is none to ...

— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... river, would not go back the way he had come. He would travel upstream and mail his letter when he found the village. Kenny conversely had found the village first. Therefore he must travel downstream to find the wood; downstream through a disheartening tangle of bush and tree and brier ...

— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... till their patrimonies be consumed, and that they have spent more in seeking than the thing is worth, or they shall get by the recovery." So that he that goes to law, as the proverb is, [516]holds a wolf by the ears, or as a sheep in a storm runs for shelter to a brier, if he prosecute his cause he is consumed, if he surcease his suit he loseth all; [517]what difference? They had wont heretofore, saith Austin, to end matters, per communes arbitros; and so in Switzerland (we are informed by [518]Simlerus), ...

— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

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