holly
Any of various shrubs or (mostly) small trees, of the genus Ilex, either evergreen or deciduous, used as decoration especially at Christmas.
Other meanings
The wood from this tree.
Any of several not closely related plant species likened to Ilex because of their prickly, evergreen foliage and/or round, bright-red berries
A kind of
- flowering tree
Kinds of holly
- gall-berry
- mate
- deciduous holly
Word history
From Old English "holeġn".
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “holly” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; related-word lists use Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0, based on Princeton WordNet), published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.