huckleberry means A small round fruit of a dark blue or red color, of several plants in the related genera Vaccinium and Gaylussacia.
huckleberry is pronounced /ˈhʌkl̩ˌbɛɹi/.
Why “huckleberry” is a great word
A small, dark blue or red edible berry produced by shrubs of the genera Vaccinium or Gaylussacia. An alteration of Middle English hurtilbery ("whortleberry"), from Old English horte ("whortleberry"), it emerged as a common American term by the 1660s. Unlike "blueberry," which denotes the larger, cultivated fruit, or the chiefly British "whortleberry," a huckleberry is a smaller, wild offering with tenacious, crunchy seeds. It is the tart prize for stained fingers after a scramble through a sun-dappled thicket, the deep, dusky purple of a pie filling that promises both sweetness and grit, and the humble, forgotten jewel of an untamed hillside—a quiet testament to the persistent, feral sweetness that thrives just beyond the orderly garden fence.
Etymology
Probably an alteration of Middle English hurtilbery (“whortleberry”). American English from 1660s.
noun
- A small round fruit of a dark blue or red color, of several plants in the related genera Vaccinium and Gaylussacia.
- A shrub growing this fruit.
- A small amount, a short distance, as in the phrase huckleberry above a persimmon.e.g.“Porter preferred prose to poetry. Prose seemed to him to be a concrete, practical form of expression. But poetry, as he informed a poet who signed his name “Evergreen,” was “a huckleberry beyond us.”” — 1967, Richard Boyd Hauck, The Literary Content of the New York Spirit of the Times, 1831-1856, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, page 88:
- A person of little consequence.
- The person one is looking for; the right person for the job.e.g.“I'm your huckleberry.”
verb
- To pick huckleberries.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- crackleberry 67% match — The high-bush huckleberry, Gaylussacia baccata, native to eastern North America, or the fruit of this shrub vs huckleberry →
- whortleberry 66% match — Any of several shrubs belonging to the genus Vaccinium:; Vaccinium myrtillus (bilberry or blue whortleberry); vs huckleberry →
- blueberry 66% match — An edible round berry, belonging to the cowberry group (Vaccinium sect. Cyanococcus), with flared crowns at the end, that turns blue on ripening. vs huckleberry →
- blueb 64% match — A blueberry (fruit). vs huckleberry →
- blackberry 61% match — A fruit-bearing shrub of the aggregate species Rubus fruticosus and some hybrids. vs huckleberry →
- hogberry 61% match — Any of several plants or their berries, usually neglected by humans; Hagberry, bird cherry (Prunus padus) vs huckleberry →
- bilberry 61% match — Vaccinium myrtillus, the wild European blueberry of the cowberry family. vs huckleberry →
- blaeberry 60% match — The bilberry, Vaccinium myrtillus. vs huckleberry →