shrub

One shrub comes from Old English sċrybb, meaning shrubbery or underbrush, related to a Norwegian word for the dwarf cornel tree. A completely separate shrub — the fruit-and-vinegar drink — comes from Arabic širāb, 'a drink,' from šariba, 'to drink.'

The plant sense simply describes low, bushy growth, largely unchanged since Old English. Separately, in the 2000s a third, unrelated use emerged in Kenya, describing English or Swahili spoken with the accent of another Kenyan language — its origin is unknown.

The drink sense of shrub is a doublet-adjacent cousin of syrup, sherbet, and sorbet, all tracing back to the same Arabic root for drinking.