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English has two words briar. Both can also be spelled brier, and their meanings are similar, so they tend to get confused. One goes back to Old English, when it was applied to any prickly bush, especially the blackberry; in modern usage it is applied to a type of wild rose. The other is much more recent. It refers to a "wild heather," and it was borrowed from French bruyère. At first it was spelled bruyer in English, but because of its similarity to briar in the "wild rose" sense, it too came to be spelled briar. It is the root of this type of briar that is used to make tobacco pipes.
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