''juniper'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260817185222-00-⌔

juniper - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

🖼️ ➺

Noun

juniper (countable and uncountable, plural junipers)

• Any shrub or tree of the genus Juniperus of the cypress family, which is characterized by pointed, needle -like leaves and aromatic berry -like cones.
  • ✤ On the mountains a few junipers and piñons are found, and cactuses, agave, and yuccas, low, fleshy plants with bayonets and thorns.¹
  • ✤ Have a tree or two the witches particularly like, such as the alder, larch, cypress and hemlock; then, to counteract any possible evil effects, there must be a holly, yew, hazel, elder, mountain ash or juniper.²
  • ✤ Sometimes I lost track of them and had to hunt round in a circle, thrusting through sharp-scented bushes, scratching myself on various plants which were still new to me: resinaceous rock-roses, juniper [translating genévriers], ilex, yellow and white asphodel.³
  • ✤ One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn. Fifty such kilns would devour six thousand metric tons of trees and brush annually.⁴
• One of a number of coniferous trees which resemble junipers.
• (UK, slang, archaic) Gin.
  • ✤ […] I said you didn’t like them ere strong liquors, but if he warn’t particular, I was sure you would pledge him in a glass of juniper, for I had always made you, since we had been man and vife${}^{[sic]}$, take a drop afore you went to market, to keep cold out.⁵

Etymology

From Late Middle English junyper, juniperus, from Latin iūniperus (“juniper-tree”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈd͡ʒuːnɪpə/
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (General American) IPA: /ˈd͡ʒunɪpɚ/, [ˈd͡ʒunɪ̈pɚ]
• Hyphenation: ju‧ni‧per

Printed 2026-08-17.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1895, J[ohn] W[esley] Powell, chapter I, in Canyons of the Colorado, Meadville, PA: Flood & Vincent; republished as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, New York: Dover, 1961, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 22: ↩

2. 1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 273: ↩

3. 1962, Simone de Beauvoir, translated by Peter Green, The Prime of Life, Cleveland, OH: The World Publishing Company, translation of La Force de l’âge, →OCLC, page 77: ↩

4. 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion, →OL: ↩

5. 1834, Young Hearts: A Novel by a Recluse. With a Preface by Miss Jane Porter, page 106: ↩