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The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.
a. Any of various plants of the genus Vaccinium, having white to reddish, urn-shaped or tubular flowers and edible blue to blue-black berries, especially the highbush blueberry and the lowbush blueberry.
b. The fruit of any of these plants.
2. A usually blue-gray spherule that is found in soil and sedimentary rock and is rich in hematite, produced by the weathering of rock or by precipitation from rock by moving groundwater.
Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:
The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.