briar.

1. A thorny shrub, especially a wild rose, or a thorny stem from such a plant.

2. The hard root wood of tree heath used especially for tobacco-pipe bowls.

3. A tobacco pipe whose bowl is made from briar wood.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• briar patch
• tangled briars
• briar thorns

On the page

Briars caught at her coat as she crossed the field.

The old gateway disappeared behind a briar patch.

A briar thorn snagged the sleeve of his jacket.

Usage notes

Primary category: environment. Forms: Plant or pipe singular briar; plural briars. Wood sense usually mass. Variant brier. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.