HOLLY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Holly

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/hˈɑli/ Listen

noun

Holly n.

(Bot.) A tree or shrub of the genus Ilex. The European species (Ilex Aquifolium) is best known, having glossy green leaves, with a spiny, waved edge, and bearing berries that turn red or yellow about Michaelmas. Note: The holly is much used to adorn churches and houses, at Christmas time, and hence is associated with scenes of good will and rejoicing. It is an evergreen tree, and has a finegrained, heavy, white wood. Its bark is used as a febrifuge, and the berries are violently purgative and emetic. The American holly is the Ilex opaca, and is found along the coast of the United States, from Maine southward.

(Bot.) The holm oak. See 1st Holm.

Holly-leaved oak (Bot.), the black scrub oak. See Scrub oak.

Holly rose (Bot.), a West Indian shrub, with showy, yellow flowers (Turnera ulmifolia).

Sea holly (Bot.), a species of Eryngium. See Eryngium.

adverb

Holly adv. Wholly. (Obs.)

See images of 'Holly'

Etymology of 'Holly'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Holly" Quotes from Famous Books

... where the holly-tree, With berries gleaming bright, Stands like a shivering giant in Its ...

— Laugh and Play - A Collection of Original stories • Various

... slide cars like glass boxes filled with liquid light; motors whose front lamps flood the asphalt with bubbling gold. If it be Christmas—and nowhere is Christmas so Christmasy as in California—the clubs and hotels show facades covered with jewel-designs in red and green lights; mistletoe, holly, stack high the sidewalks on each side of the flower stands. The beautiful Native Daughter, eyes dancing, lips smiling, dressed with much color and more chic, is everywhere. And everywhere too, crowding the streets, thronging the cafes, jamming the theatres, ...

— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin

... were not yet concluded; indeed he himself became partly of that mind, when, after passing one or two straggling houses which stood in the outskirts of the village, he found himself in a deep lane, running between two banks overgrown with hazel and holly, while here and there a dwarf oak flung its arms altogether across the path. The lane was moreover much rutted and broken up by the carriages which had recently transported articles of various kinds to the tournament; and it was dark, for the banks and bushes intercepted the ...

— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... and laughter, The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, And sprouting is every corbel and rafter With lightsome green of ivy and holly; Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; The broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned ...

— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... time when there is the least likelihood of suspicion? Nay, they are neither; but, nevertheless, their errand is a nefarious one. Watch at the gate for an hour and you will see them come back again each man laden with the spoils of the shrubberies—holly, mistletoe, and evergreens—ruthlessly plundered under cover of the darkness. A couple of days before "the day," the sergeant-major enters the barrack-room, a smile playing upon his rubicund features. We all know what his errand is and he knows right well that ...

— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

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