Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Bryony
/ˈbraɪəni/noun
A climbing hedgerow vine with tendrils, greenish flowers and poisonous berries.
The Greek roots
βρυωνία
bryōnía
the bryony plant
βρύειν
brýein
to swell, sprout
Literally: “the teeming one”
The story of the word
The root verb βρύειν describes something bursting with growth, which is a fair account of a vine that can cover a hedge in a season. Dioscorides prescribed the root; it is a violent purgative and the berries can kill a child, so herbals carried warnings for centuries. English confuses matters by calling two unrelated plants bryony, since black bryony is a yam relative and no Bryonia at all.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- Old English
Same family
bryophytebryologybryozoan
In a sentence
White bryony had taken the whole length of the hedge by August.
The berries look like small tomatoes, which is exactly why bryony poisons children.