Library / English Dictionary

HOLLY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

United States rock star (1936-1959)

Synonyms:

Buddy Holly; Charles Hardin Holley; Holly

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Instance hypernyms:

rock star (a famous singer of rock music)

ballad maker; songster; songwriter (a composer of words or music for popular songs)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any tree or shrub of the genus Ilex having red berries and shiny evergreen leaves with prickly edges

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("holly" is a kind of...):

angiospermous tree; flowering tree (any tree having seeds and ovules contained in the ovary)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "holly"):

bearberry; Ilex decidua; possum haw; winterberry (deciduous shrub of southeastern and central United States)

evergreen winterberry; gall-berry; gallberry; Ilex glabra; inkberry (evergreen holly of eastern North America with oblong leathery leaves and small black berries)

Ilex paraguariensis; mate; Paraguay tea (South American holly; leaves used in making a drink like tea)

American holly; Christmas holly (an evergreen tree)

low gallberry holly; tall gallberry holly; yaupon holly (an evergreen shrub)

deciduous holly (a holly tree)

juneberry holly (a holly shrub)

largeleaf holly (a holly tree)

Geogia holly; common winterberry holly; smooth winterberry holly (a holly shrub)

Holonyms ("holly" is a member of...):

genus Ilex; Ilex (a large genus of dicotyledonous trees and shrubs of the family Aquifoliaceae that have small flowers and berries (including hollies))

Credits

 Context examples: 

If a breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But even as he brooded sadly over it and pined for the sweet peace of the Abbey, he came on an open space dotted with holly bushes, where was the strangest sight that he had yet chanced upon.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That's my middle west—not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns but the thrilling, returning trains of my youth and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)