Raspberry

How to spell raspberry

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce raspberry

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does raspberry mean?

1. nounA soft, red or sometimes black edible berry made up of small juicy segments around a hollow core.
2. nounA rude sound made by sticking out the tongue and blowing, used to show contempt or mockery.

Raspberry in a sentence

• Each tart was topped with a single raspberry and a mint leaf.

• The toddler blew a loud raspberry at his older sister across the table.

• The jam jar was labelled raspberry and strawberry blend.

• The crowd gave the referee a raspberry after the harsh decision.

Where does raspberry come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word combines an older fruit name, rasp, with the familiar English berry. The berry element is plain native Old English, from berie, meaning a small round juicy fruit. The rasp element is the puzzle: the fruit was called a raspis berry in the 1500s, and raspis probably came from raspise, a sweet rose-coloured wine, though the chain of borrowing is not certain. Some link it ultimately to a Medieval Latin or Old French source, but the evidence is thin, so the origin of rasp is best treated as obscure. The silent p sitting between the s and the b is the spelling trap, a leftover from that original raspis form rather than any sound you actually pronounce.

How the word is built

• rasp- (from raspis: an old name for the berry)
• berry (Old English berie: edible fruit)