blueberries

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of blueberry.

   The recipe calls for two cups of blueberries and a little lemon zest.

   Wild blueberries grow across the cooler forests of the north.

   Note

   The regular plural follows the rule that turns a consonant plus final y into -ies, the same rule behind cherries and berries. It can count the fruit (a cup of blueberries) or the shrubs that bear it (a hillside of blueberries), and it can also name shades of the color. The identical spelling also serves the verb for going picking, so only the sentence shows which is meant.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of blueberry.

   Each summer the whole crew blueberries along the coastal barrens for weeks.

   When she blueberries on the state land, she always fills two buckets before noon.

   Note

   Here the fruit's name becomes the work of gathering it, and the -s marks a single subject: she blueberries, the whole crew blueberries. A collective noun like crew takes this singular form. The verb takes no object. Where the picking happens follows as a phrase, as in along the coastal barrens or on the state land. Without a subject before it, the word is the plural fruit instead.

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