English

Wikispecies

Sketch of Vaccinium erythrocarpum.

Noun

dingleberry ‎(plural dingleberries)

1. Vaccinium erythrocarpum, the southern mountain cranberry.^[1]
   • 1937, US Government Printing Office, Range Plant Handbook:

     dingleberries, or mountain-cranberries (Huge'ria, syn. Oxycoccoi'des), cranberries (Oxycoc'cus)

   • 1959, Gordon Webber, What end but love:

     Helen sat on the ground crumbling hard lumps of clay between her fingers, and tried to imagine the green place in the swamp where the dingleberries grew.

   • 1988, S.P. Vander Kloet, The Genus Vaccinium in North America, ISBN 0660130378, page 6:

     Vaccinium erythrocarpum, the dingleberry, sometimes produces berries of excellent flavor, which are used locally for jellies; Uphof (1968) reports that this species has been recommended for cultivation.

2. (dated, manufacturing) Any residual irregularity following processing
   • 1951, Charles Diehl, Method for Welding a Joint, US Patent 2747065, page 3:

     The contour of the root bead is very irregular and solidified drops of metal, "cherries" or "dingleberries," extend therefrom evidencing burn-throughs.

   • 1966, May 20, Stymied by Seniority:

     That still left the problem of deciding on the "dingleberries"—the employees who would be exempt from seniority restrictions because of "special skills and outstanding abilities."

   • 1967, M.R. Calton, Welding of Dispersion-Strengthened Alloys, US Patent 3477117, page 6:

     It is theorized that when the surface velocity is below certain minimum values the material at the interface between workpieces WP-1 and WP-2 rolls up and extrudes from the interface in the form of long twisted cylindrical projections which are sometimes referred to as "dingle-berries."

3. (slang) A small piece of feces clumped to hair around the anus.
4. (slang) A stupid person.

Synonyms

• (cranberry): arando, bearberry
• (stupid person): idiot, moron
• (piece of faeces): (Australia) dag, (Australia) dags

Translations

References

1. ↑ “dingleberry n” listed on page 73 of the Dictionary of American Regional English by Frederic Gomes Cassidy and Joan Houston Hall (1985; Harvard University Press; ISBN 0674205111, 9780674205116)