bramble

name

1. A surname.

noun

Etymology: From Middle English brembel, from Old English bræmbel, from earlier brǣmel, brēmel, from dialectal Proto-West Germanic *brāmil, diminutive of *brām (English broom).

1. Any of many closely related thorny plants in the genus Rubus including the blackberry and likely not including the raspberry proper.

   “The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.”

   “At the same time, the encroachment of vegetation proceeds apace, and broom and brambles have already made portions of the line impassable, even on foot.”

2. Any thorny shrub.
3. A cocktail of gin, lemon juice, and blackberry liqueur.
4. The soft fruit borne by the species Rubus fruticosus formed of a black (when ripe) cluster of drupelets.
5. A collection of mutually touching connected subgraphs, where two subgraphs touch if they share a vertex or each includes one endpoint of an edge.

verb

Etymology: From Middle English brembel, from Old English bræmbel, from earlier brǣmel, brēmel, from dialectal Proto-West Germanic *brāmil, diminutive of *brām (English broom).

1. To pick or collect blackberries from brambles.