holly

Meaning

Noun

• Any of various shrubs or (mostly) small trees, of the genus Ilex, either evergreen or deciduous, used as decoration especially at Christmas.
• The wood from this tree.
• Any of several unrelated plant species likened to Ilex because of their prickly, evergreen foliage and/or round, bright-red berries

Origin

• From Middle English holly, holi, holie, a shortened variation of holin, holyn (> English dialectal hollen, holm), from Old English holeġn, holen, from Proto-West Germanic *hulis, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- ("to cut").
• Cognate with Scots holin, hollin, holyn, Dutch hulst ("holly"), German Hulst ("holly"), French houx , Danish hylver ("holly"), Welsh celyn ("holly"), Russian ко́лос ("ear of wheat"), Albanian kalli ("straw, chaff"), Latin culmus ("stalk, stem"), Sanskrit कटम्ब ("arrow"), Old Church Slavonic класъ ("ear of grain").