Other forms: sloes
A sloe is the small sharp black fruit of the blackthorn. Pick sloes, sloe gin, sloes after the frost.
It is inedible raw and mouth-dryingly sour, which is why it exists in kitchens only as sloe gin. Tradition says to pick them after the first frost, and the freezer does the same job in a night.
1nounsloeThe small sharp black fruit of the blackthorn.
“We picked sloes from the hedges in October and soaked them in gin.”
sloe is a fruit.
Old English slah names the fruit, from a Germanic root shared across northern Europe.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)leh₃y- — bluish
Proto-Germanic
*slaihǭ
Proto-West Germanic
*slaihā
Old English
slā
Middle English
slo
English, today
sloe
From Middle English slo, sla, sloo, from Old English slā, slāh, from Proto-West Germanic slaihā, from Proto-Germanic slaihǭ, slaihwō, from Proto-Indo-European (s)leh₃y- (“bluish”). a doublet of Sliwa.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA