dingleberry

English

Wikispecies

Sketch of Vaccinium erythrocarpum.

Etymology

Perhaps for dangle +‎ berry.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈdɪŋɡəɫbɛɹi/

Noun

dingleberry (plural dingleberries)

  1. Vaccinium erythrocarpum, the southern mountain cranberry.[1]
    • 1937, US Government Printing Office, Range Plant Handbook:
      dingleberries, or mountain-cranberries (Huge'ria, syn. Oxycoccoi'des), cranberries (Oxycoc'cus)
    • 1959, Gordon Webber, What end but love:
      Helen sat on the ground crumbling hard lumps of clay between her fingers, and tried to imagine the green place in the swamp where the dingleberries grew.
    • 1988, S.P. Vander Kloet, The Genus Vaccinium in North America‎, →ISBN, page 6:
      Vaccinium erythrocarpum, the dingleberry, sometimes produces berries of excellent flavor, which are used locally for jellies; Uphof (1968) reports that this species has been recommended for cultivation.
  2. (slang) A stupid or foolish person.[2]
  3. (slang) Dried fecal matter adhering to anal hair.[2]
  4. (dated, manufacturing) Any residual irregularity following processing
    • 1951, Charles Diehl, Method for Welding a Joint‎, US Patent 2747065, page 3:
      The contour of the root bead is very irregular and solidified drops of metal, "cherries" or "dingleberries," extend therefrom evidencing burn-throughs.
    • 1966, May 20, Stymied by Seniority‎:
      That still left the problem of deciding on the "dingleberries"—the employees who would be exempt from seniority restrictions because of "special skills and outstanding abilities."
    • 1967, M.R. Calton, Welding of Dispersion-Strengthened Alloys‎, US Patent 3477117, page 6:
      It is theorized that when the surface velocity is below certain minimum values the material at the interface between workpieces WP-1 and WP-2 rolls up and extrudes from the interface in the form of long twisted cylindrical projections which are sometimes referred to as "dingle-berries."

Synonyms

Translations

References
  1. “dingleberry n” listed on page 73 of the Dictionary of American Regional English by Frederic Gomes Cassidy and Joan Houston Hall (1985; Harvard University Press; →ISBN, 9780674205116)
  2. Ayto, ‎John & Simpson, John (2010). "Dingleberry," In Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, see . Retrieved 18 November 2016.
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