Cherries

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small, fleshy fruit with a pit that comes in various colors, often enjoyed fresh or used in culinary dishes and confections
2. A fruit-bearing tree that thrives in warm climates, yielding clusters of fruits known for their vibrant colors and flavors
3. A round, juicy fruit with a hard pit inside, ranging in color from red to dark purple and commonly eaten fresh or in desserts ; A deciduous tree known for producing these bright, flavorful fruits and cultivated in temperate regions

Etymology: The plural here is simply the regular "-ies" form of "cherry", so the story belongs to the singular. The singular's most surprising feature is that it arrived in English through a mistake: Anglo-Norman speakers borrowed a word "cherise", and English speakers then took that ending for a plural and created a new singular "chery" from it. Behind it lies the Old English "ċiris" and "ċirse", which were already in use for the fruit. Those words descend from Vulgar Latin "ceresia", which traces back to Late Latin "cerasium" and ancient Greek "kerásion", meaning "cherry fruit". The Greek word was itself derived from "kerasós", the name of the bird cherry tree. Its ending points to a language spoken in Anatolia before Greek arrived there, so the fruit's name may predate Greek altogether. Linguists have traced it to that pre-Greek source, though its exact origin remains uncertain. Other English words descend from the same root by different routes. "Cerise" entered English from French, "kirsch" came from German, and both keep the older fruit-name in a different shape.

Synonyms: fruits, berries