raspberry

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: räz'brē, IPA^(key): /ˈɹɑːzb(ə)ɹi/
• (Northern England, Scotland) enPR: răz'brē, IPA^(key): /ˈɹæzbɹi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) enPR: răz'bĕ"rē, IPA^(key): /ˈɹæzˌbɛɹi/

From earlier raspis berry, possibly from raspise (a sweet rose-colored wine), from Anglo-Latin vinum raspeys, of uncertain origin. Possibly related to rasp (“coarse, rough”), of Germanic origin.^[1]

raspberry (plural raspberries)

2. The plant Rubus idaeus.
3. Any of many other (but not all) species in the genus Rubus.
4. The juicy aggregate fruit of these plants.
5. A red colour, the colour of a ripe raspberry.

   raspberry:  

• (obsolete) hindberry, raspis

• fruit
  • berry

• (aggregate fruit): drupelet

• → Japanese: ラズベリー (razuberī)

raspberry (comparative raspberrier, superlative raspberriest)

1. Containing or having the flavor/flavour of raspberries.
   • 1941 April 10, Elsie, the Borden Cow [pseudonym], “Good Moos”, in Chicago Daily Tribune, volume C, number 86, Chicago, Ill., page 21:

     It’s a gorgeous ice cream dream…a generous roll of vanilla shaped like a log…sprinkled with toasted pecan nuts…and filled with an egg-shaped center of the raspberriest raspberry ice cream ever!

   • 1979 June, Jell-O, “Now there’s even more magic in a Jell-O® Gelatin Rainbow Cake”, in Better Homes and Gardens, volume 57, number 6, Des Moines, Ia.: Meredith Corporation, →ISSN, page 135:

     Raspberry Flavor JELL-O® BRAND Gelatin now tastes even raspberrier.

   • 1999 June/July, “Contents”, in Garden Design, volume 18, number 4, New York, N.Y.: Meigher Communications, →ISSN, page 9:

     Pluck the easiest, tastiest, raspberriest raspberry around.

   • 2009 July 29, Chris Stevens, “Berry my heart”, in The Daily Item, volume 131, number 198, Lynn, Mass., page B2, column 1:

     Apparently, yellow raspberries are no more difficult to grow than red or black, but are deemed a specialty item because only a handful of growers are producing them. […] I have heard, however, that they are sweeter and a little less raspberrier than the red ones, so maybe I might like them.

   • 2011, Ann A. Rosenstein, “Organic, Conventional and Local foods”, in Diet Myths Busted: Food Facts, Not Nutrition Fiction, Enumclaw, Wash.: Idyll Arbor, Inc., →ISBN, page 244:

     To get raspberries that taste “raspberrier,” and blueberries that taste “bluer” buy produce that’s locally grown, in season, and hasn’t been sitting on the shelf too long, or visit any of the “you-pick-it-yourself” farms for seasonal produce.

   • 2017, Annie O’Neil, Her Hot Highland Doc, London: Mills & Boon, →ISBN, page 87:

     This was the third morning running she’d relished the warmth and sugary sweet air of the Dunregan Bakehouse. This first “thawing station” on her bicycle ride into work. It had nothing to do with the fact they also made the fluffiest scones she’d ever tasted. And with lashings of the fruitiest, raspberriest jam in the world.

2. Of a dark pinkish red.
   • 1985, Prince (lyrics and music), “Raspberry Beret”, in Around the World in a Day, performed by Prince and the Revolution:

     She wore a raspberry beret / The kind you find in a second hand store

raspberry (third-person singular simple present raspberries, present participle raspberrying, simple past and past participle raspberried)

1. To gather or forage for raspberries.
   • 1903, M. E. Waller, A Daughter of the Rich, Little, Brown, and Company, published 1903, page 137:

     […] she stuck burrs in my bed and lead me through the nettle-patch when we were raspberrying, because she knew I did n't know nettles; […]

   • 1917, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 37, in Anne's House of Dreams:

     "Owen and she went raspberrying in the woods back of her farm," answered Anne. "They won't be back before supper time—if then."

   • 1944, Cornelius Weygandt, The Heart of New Hampshire: Things Held Dear by Folks of the Old Stocks, G. P. Putnam's Sons, published 1944, page 129:

     […] Mrs. Thrifty was picking pie cherries, two boys were raspberrying, and the fourth son, as I recall it, blueberrying.

   • 1976, Emily Ward, The Way Things Were: An Autobiography of Emily Ward, Newport Press (1976), page 4:

     My mother told my sister Sally and me that if we were good little girls we might go raspberrying up on the mountains when the raspberries were ripe.

   • 1988, Charles McCarry, The Bride of the Wilderness‎^[1], MysteriousPress.com, published 2011, →ISBN:

     In strawberry time she had seen individual bears grazing in the meadows along the bluff, and later, while raspberrying, she heard one gobbling fruit and snorting on the other side of the bush.

• (reds) red; blood red, brick red, burgundy, cardinal, carmine, carnation, cerise, cherry, cherry red, Chinese red, cinnabar, claret, crimson, damask, fire brick, fire engine red, flame, flamingo, fuchsia, garnet, geranium, gules, hot pink, incarnadine, Indian red, magenta, maroon, misty rose, nacarat, oxblood, pillar-box red, pink, Pompeian red, poppy, raspberry, red violet, rose, rouge, ruby, ruddy, salmon, sanguine, scarlet, shocking pink, stammel, strawberry, Turkey red, Venetian red, vermilion, vinaceous, vinous, violet red, wine ^{(Category: en:Reds)}
• boysenberry
• loganberry
• salmonberry
• tayberry
• thimbleberry
• whitebark raspberry

Cockney rhyming slang, from raspberry tart = fart (though "raspberry" is rarely used for a fart, merely a noise which imitates it). Compare raspberry ripple = cripple.

raspberry (plural raspberries)

2. (colloquial) A noise intended to imitate the passing of flatulence, made by blowing air out of the mouth while the tongue is protruding from and pressed against the lips, or by blowing air through the lips while they are pressed firmly together or against skin (often a form of tickling) used humorously or to express derision.

   Synonyms: (US) Bronx cheer, razz

   • 2021 December 1, “Network News: Integrated Rail Plan: Osborne predicts HS2 eastern leg will return”, in RAIL, number 945, page 8:

     Of the announcement, Osborne said: "They have spent a hundred billion pounds of public money and they've got a massive raspberry from everyone as far as I can see. As a PR exercise, it's been an object lesson in how not to make a government announcement."

3. (derogatory, colloquial) A physically disabled person.

• blow a raspberry

raspberry (third-person singular simple present raspberries, present participle raspberrying, simple past and past participle raspberried)

1. (colloquial) To make the noise intended to imitate the passing of flatulence.