What does corylus mean?
Corylus is the botanical genus name for the hazels, a group of deciduous shrubs and small trees in the birch family, Betulaceae. The best-known member, Corylus avellana, is the common hazel of European hedgerows, prized since antiquity for its edible nuts — sold commercially as cobnuts and filberts — and for its flexible stems, traditionally used in wattle fencing and basketry. Members of the genus are recognised by their rounded, serrated leaves and their long, pale-yellow catkins, which appear in late winter and shed pollen well before most other trees have leafed out. In everyday English the word is rare outside gardening, forestry, and scientific contexts; ordinary conversation favours 'hazel' for the tree and 'hazelnut' for the nut. Its enduring value lies in precision: where 'hazel' can also describe a colour or a name, 'Corylus' unambiguously denotes the plant itself.
nounA genus of deciduous shrubs and small trees in the birch family (Betulaceae), comprising the hazels and filberts, bearing edible nuts and distinctive yellow catkins.
- The botanical genus Corylus, encompassing the hazels and filberts (shrubs and small trees of the family Betulaceae).
- By extension, an individual tree or shrub belonging to this genus, referred to in horticultural or botanical writing by its Latin name.
"The garden's north border was planted with a row of Corylus avellana, whose late-winter catkins brightened the bare beds."
"Botanists now classify the Turkish hazel as Corylus colurna."
"Under the old hedge stood a self-sown corylus, its branches heavy with ripening nuts."
In formal taxonomic writing the genus name is typically left uninflected even when referring to multiple members ('species of Corylus'); the regular English plural 'coryluses' appears mainly in informal horticultural contexts.
"Several coryluses line the arboretum's eastern path."
Every hazelnut you've ever eaten came from a single plant genus, Corylus, whose very name was handed down almost untouched from ancient Latin.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of corylus
The word comes directly from Latin corylus, meaning 'hazel tree'. Latin in turn borrowed it from a Greek form (korylos or a related word), which referred to the same tree; the exact deeper prehistory within Greek is uncertain. The Latin name was adopted essentially unchanged into modern botanical nomenclature when the genus was formally established, which is why the scientific name still matches the ancient word so closely. English cognates are limited because the common English word 'hazel' derives from a separate Germanic root rather than from the Latin.
How corylus is actually used
'Corylus' is primarily a technical term used in botany, horticulture, and scientific writing; in everyday speech English speakers simply say 'hazel', 'filbert', or 'cobnut'. When used as a genus name it is conventionally italicised and capitalised (Corylus); when treated as a common noun for a tree of this genus it appears in lower case and often takes a plural form.
Easily confused with corylus
'Corylus' is the botanical genus of hazel trees, while 'Coriolis' refers to the Coriolis effect, an apparent deflection of moving objects in a rotating frame such as the Earth.