What is "juniper"

Juniper \Ju"ni*per\, n. [L. juniperus, prop., youth-producing, and so called from its evergreen appearance, from the roots of E. juvenile, and parent. Cf. Gin the liquor.] (Bot.) Any evergreen shrub or tree, of the genus Juniperus and order Conifer[ae].

Note: The common juniper ( Juniperus communis) is a shrub of a low, spreading form, having awl-shaped, rigid leaves in whorls of threes, and bearing small purplish blue berries (or galbuli), of a warm, pungent taste, used as diuretic and in flavoring gin. A resin exudes from the bark, which has erroneously been considered identical with sandarach, and is used as pounce. The oil of juniper is acrid, and used for various purposes, as in medicine, for making varnish, etc. The wood of several species is of a reddish color, hard and durable, and is used in cabinetwork under the names of red cedar, Bermuda cedar, etc.

Juniper worm (Zo["o]l.), the larva of a geometrid moth ( Drepanodes varus). It feeds upon the leaves of the juniper, and mimics the small twigs both in form and color, in a remarkable manner.

"evergreen shrub," late 14c., from Latin iuniperus (source of French genièvre, Spanish enebro, Portuguese zimbro, Italian ginepro), of uncertain origin, perhaps related to iunco "reed." Watkins has it from PIE *yoini-paros "bearing juniper berries," from *yoi-ni- "juniper berry." Applied to various North American species from 1748. In the Bible, it renders Hebrew rethem, the name of a white-flowered shrub unrelated to the European evergreen.

n. any shrub or tree of the genus ''Juniperus'' of the cypress family; characterized by pointed, needle-like leaves and aromatic berry-like cones.

1. n. desert shrub of Syria and Arabia having small white flowers; constitutes the juniper of the Old Testament; sometimes placed in genus Genista [syn: retem, raetam, juniper bush, Retama raetam, Genista raetam]

2. coniferous shrub or small tree with berrylike cones

Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, between 50 and 67 species of juniper are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the mountains of Central America and Ziarat Pakistan. The highest-known Juniper forest occurs at altitude of 4,900 metres in south-eastern Tibet and the northern Himalayas, creating one of the highest tree-lines on earth.

Juniper (Juniperus) is a type of shrub and tree in the cypress family.

Juniper may also refer to:

The Servant of God, Juniper, O.F.M., best known as Brother Juniper (died 1258), called "the renowned jester of the Lord," was one of the original followers of St. Francis of Assisi. Not much is known about Juniper before he joined the friars. In 1210, he was received into the Order of Friars Minor by St. Francis himself. "Would to God, my brothers, that I had a whole forest of such Junipers," Saint Francis would pun.

Francis sent him to establish "places" for the friars in Gualdo Tadino and Viterbo. When St. Clare of Assisi was dying, Juniper consoled her. Juniper is buried at Ara Coeli Church at Rome. His feast day is celebrated on 29 January.

St. Junípero Serra (1713–1784), born Miquel Josep Serra i Ferrer, took his religious name in honor of Brother Juniper when he was received into the Order.

Juniper were an Irish rock band from County Kildare, most widely known today as a precursor to Damien Rice and Bell X1. The band consisted of Rice (under the pseudonym Dodi Ma), Paul Noonan, Brian Crosby, Dominic Philips and David Geraghty. They released two extended plays, The J-Plane (1994) and Manna (1996).

The band's only two singles, " Weatherman" and " World Is Dead", charted in Ireland when released in 1998. Juniper also appeared on a compilation album, Natural Born Elvis (1998). They split over creative differences soon after, with Rice going on to have a successful solo career and the remaining members forming Bell X1.

The given name Juniper is either in reference to the English common name for the juniper tree or berry, or in reference to a derivation of the Welsh name Guinevere. Juniper has historically been used as both a boys' name and a girls' name.

In 2011, Juniper entered the top 1000 list of given names in the United States for the first time and is quickly becoming a popular girls name likely due to the popularity of a wide assortment of well-known fictional works, including the cartoon series The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, the movie Benny & Joon (where the Joon character was short for Juniper), Pamela Dean's novel Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, and the Donovan song, " Jennifer Juniper".

The Juniper tree's name is derived from the Latin word juniperus. In Latin, juniperus is combination of the word junio, which means young, and parere, to produce, hence youth producing, or evergreen. Ginepro (Italian for Juniper), Ginevra (Italian variant form of Juniper), and Ginny are other names that also refer to the Juniper tree.

Juniper is used to flavour the alcoholic spirit gin. The traditional drink jenever and its French name genièvre are names for juniper. The French name was shortened to geneva, sounding the same as the place name, and further abbreviated to 'gin'.

In some French dialects, the plant is known as geneviève. This is also a French given name, notably that of Sainte Genevieve, patron saint of Paris. However, this name was derived from Latin Genovefa for Germanic Kenowefa (like English kin and wife) and originally had no link with genièvre (French for "juniper"), which is not a female first name. Another name which was originally unrelated is the British name Guinevere (Guenièvre in French), a variant Old French spelling of Gwenhwyfar, which in Welsh is a combination of the word gwen (mod. gwyn) which means "white" or "fair" and hwyfar which means a "spirit" or "fairy". This is also the origin of Jennifer, another name that sounds similar to Juniper. Because the Latin Juniperus family of names are the same or very similar sounding to the Welsh Guinevere family of names, it is very difficult to determine, for names that begin with gin-, jen-, or jun-, which family they ultimately originated with.