shrub

1 of 2

noun (1)

ˈshrəb How to pronounce shrub (audio)
 especially Southern  ˈsrəb
: a low usually several-stemmed woody plant
shrub-like adjective
or shrublike
ˈshrəb-ˌlīk How to pronounce shrub (audio)
 especially Southern  ˈsrəb-
shrub-like plants

shrub

2 of 2

noun (2)

1
: an aged blend of fruit juice, sugar, and spirits served chilled and diluted with water
2
: a beverage made by adding acidulated fruit juice to iced water

Examples of shrub in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
Female cicadas can damage several varieties of trees and shrubs. USA TODAY, 7 Mar. 2024 Evergreen or deciduous trees and shrubs work equally well. Andrea Beck, Better Homes & Gardens, 4 Mar. 2024 Beyond releasing more nutrients for more trees and shrubs to grow—a sort of self-perpetuating feedback loop—permafrost is also releasing planet-warming gases, driving still more warming: The microbes feeding on that ancient plant material release carbon dioxide and methane as byproducts. Matt Simon, WIRED, 4 Mar. 2024 Varieties with chartreuse or variegated leaves, or more compact plants, typically performed just as well as the native plant, although caterpillar activity on shrub cultivars with red and purple leaves is still being studied. Tovah Martin, Washington Post, 27 Feb. 2024 Sasabe, Arizona — Migrants from all corners of the globe come here to cross into the U.S. through breaches or gaps in the border wall, which covers miles of a rugged landscape featuring steep hillsides, dirt roads, cows, cacti and desert shrubs. Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News, 24 Feb. 2024 Parts of Greenland’s ice sheet and glaciers that melted over the past three decades have been replaced by wetlands, shrub vegetation and areas of barren rock, according to a new study that used satellite images to track changes since the 1980s. Denise Chow, NBC News, 13 Feb. 2024 Order the Rumble Fish, a cocktail made with cachaça, grape shrub, yuzu sake, and Dimmi, then topped with a cluster of frozen grapes. Chelsee Lowe, Travel + Leisure, 25 Feb. 2024 Now his great-granddaughter is cultivating seed there, and not just from the Clematis that scramble over shrubs, festooning their branches with colorful little bells and stars and, later, the froth of all those seed heads. Margaret Roach, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Feb. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shrub.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Noun (1)

Middle English schrobbe, from Old English scrybb brushwood; akin to Norwegian skrubbebær, a cornel of a dwarf species

Noun (2)

Arabic sharāb beverage

First Known Use

Noun (1)

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above

Noun (2)

circa 1706, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of shrub was before the 12th century

Dictionary Entries Near shrub

Cite this Entry

“Shrub.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shrub. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

shrub

noun
ˈshrəb
: a woody plant that has several stems and is smaller than most trees

More from Merriam-Webster on shrub

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