hazel

1. Any of various shrubs or small trees of the genus Corylus, especially the European species C. avellana or the American species C. americana, bearing edible nuts enclosed in a leafy husk. Also called filbert.
2. A hazelnut.
3. A light brown or yellowish brown.

[Middle English hasel, from Old English hæsel.]

In England, there is no lore about the hazel as a tree, though its twigs were said to make good dowsing rods. The nuts are used in love divinations, and ‘going nutting’ or ‘gathering nuts’ are euphemisms for love-making.

Both the wood and the edible nuts of this bush or small tree (genus Corylus) have played important roles in Irish and Welsh traditions. Hazel leaves and nuts are found in early British burial mounds and shaft-wells, especially at Ashill, Norfolk. The place-name story for Fordruim, an early name for Tara, describes it as a pleasant hazel wood. In the ogham alphabet of early Ireland, the letter C was represented by hazel [Old Irish coll]. It also represented the ninth month on the Old Irish calendar, 6 August to 2 September. Initiate members of the Fianna had to defend themselves armed only with a hazel stick and a shield; yet in the Fenian legends the hazel without leaves was thought evil, dripping poisonous milk, and the home of vultures. Thought a fairy tree in both Ireland and Wales, wood from the hazel was sacred to poets and was thus a taboo fuel on any hearth. Heralds carried hazel wands as badges of office. Witches' wands are often made of hazel, as are divining rods, used to find underground water. In Cornwall the hazel was used in the millpreve, the magical adder stones. In Wales a twig of hazel would be given to a rejected lover.

Even more esteemed than the hazel's wood were its nuts, often described as the ‘nuts of wisdom’, e.g. esoteric or occult knowledge. Hazels of wisdom grew at the heads of the seven chief rivers of Ireland, and nine grew over both Connla's Well and the Well of Segais, the legendary common source of the Boyne and the Shannon. The nuts would fall into the water, causing bubbles of mystic inspiration to form, or were eaten by salmon. The number of spots on a salmon's back were thought to indicate the number of nuts it had consumed. The salmon of wisdom caught by Fionn mac Cumhaill had eaten hazel nuts.

The name of the Irish hero Mac Cuill means ‘son of the hazel’. W. B. Yeats thought the hazel was the common Irish form of the tree of life. Old Irish and Modern Irish coll; Scottish Gaelic calltunn, calltuinn; Manx coull; Welsh collen; Cornish collwedhen; Breton kraoñklevezenn.

Look up hazel in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Hazel may refer to:

Contents 1 Plants and animals 2 Persons 3 Places 4 Entertainment 5 Other uses 6 See also

Plants and animals

• Hazel (Corylus), a genus of nut-bearing trees and shrubs, including Common Hazel.
• Hazelnut, the nut of the hazel
• Witch hazel, another species of plant
• Hazel Dormouse, a species of rodent that feeds on the nuts of hazels
• Hazel Grouse, a species of grouse often found in hazel woods

Persons

Hazel (given name), a woman's first name:

• Hazel Blears, British politician and Labour MP for Salford, Britain
• Hazel Byford, Conservative member of House of Lords, Britain
• Hazel Carter, wife of WWI veteran, Corporal John Carter
• Hazel Crowney, British-born Bollywood (India) film actress
• Hazel Dickens, American bluegrass singer
• Hazel Hutchins, Canadian children's author
• Hazel Bryan Massery, protesting student caught in a legendary photograph, during the integration crisis
• Hazel McCallion, mayor of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
• Hazel Miner, who died saving her siblings during a spring blizzard in Center, Oliver County, North Dakota
• Hazel O'Connor, British singer-songwriter and actress
• Hazel R. O'Leary, former United States Secretary of Energy
• Hazel Scott, jazz and classical pianist and singer
• Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, American tennis player

Surname

• Eddie Hazel, US guitarist in early funk music

Fictional

• Hazel Aden, character in Degrassi: The Next Generation
• Hazel Bellamy, character in Upstairs, Downstairs
• Hazel Grosse, character in Kazuya Minekura's manga series Gensoumaden Saiyuki
• Hazel Shade, fictional daughter of the poet, John Shade
• Hazel Stone, a character by Robert A. Heinlein
• Hazel (Watership Down), the rabbit leader in Richard Adams' novel, Watership Down

Places

Canada

• Hazel Hill, Nova Scotia

United States

• Hazel, Kentucky
• Hazel, South Dakota
• Hazel Crest, Illinois
• Hazel Dell North, Washington
• Hazel Dell South, Washington
• Hazel Green, Alabama
  • Hazel Green High School
• Hazel Green, Wisconsin
• Hazel Green (town), Wisconsin
• Hazel Park, Michigan
• Hazel Run, Minnesota
• Hazel Run Township, Minnesota
• Hazel Wolf High School, a private school in Seattle, Washington

United Kingdom

• Hazel Grove, Stockport, England
• Hazel Slade Reserve in Staffordshire

Entertainment

• Hazel (band), an American indie rock band from the 1990s
• Hazel (comic), a single-panel comic strip about a live-in maid
• Hazel (TV series), a 1960s sitcom based on the single-panel comic strip, starring Shirley Booth.
• Sister Hazel, a musical group from the United States

Other uses

• Hurricane Hazel, the worst storm of the 1954 hurricane season
• Tropical Storm Hazel
• Eye color#Hazel

See also

• Hazell (disambiguation)

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - hassel

Nederlands (Dutch)
hazelaar, hazelnoot, hazelaarshout, hazelnootbruin

Français (French)
n. - noisetier, bois de noisetier
adj. - de noisetier

Deutsch (German)
n. - Haselnußstrauch
adj. - haselnußbraun

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (φυτολ.) φουντουκιά, λεπτοκαρυδιά
adj. - ανοιχτοκάστανος, από ξύλο φουντουκιάς

Italiano (Italian)
(legno di) nocciolo, color nocciola

Português (Portuguese)
n. - aveleira (f) (Bot.)
adj. - cor (f) marrom

Русский (Russian)
лесной орех, ореховый

Español (Spanish)
n. - avellano, madera del avellano
adj. - de avellana, de madera o color del avellano

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - hassel(nöt), nötbrun färg
adj. - nötbrun

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
榛子, 淡褐色

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 榛子, 淡褐色

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 개암[나무], 담갈색

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - ハシバミ, 薄茶色
adj. - ハシバミ色の, 薄茶色の

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) البندق شجر, لون البندق (صفه) بندقجي مصنوع من خشب البندق, بندقي اللون‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮אלסר, אגוז, חום-אדמדם‬

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