shrub

noun

1. A woody plant smaller than a tree, and usually with several stems from the same base.

   “No trees have grown on the windswept Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean for tens of thousands of years — just shrubs and other low-lying vegetation. That’s why a recent arboreal discovery nearly 20 feet (6 meters) beneath the ground caught researchers’ attention.”

   “Tara flour is one of two products made from the seed pods of a thorny shrub native to Peru. One of those, tara gum, has been used safely for years as a thickening agent or stabilizer in human foods.”

2. (countable, uncountable)A liquor composed of vegetable acid, fruit juice (especially lemon), sugar, sometimes vinegar, and a small amount of spirit as a preservative. Modern shrub is usually non-alcoholic, but in earlier times it was often mixed with a substantial amount of spirit such as brandy or rum, thus making it a liqueur.
3. (Kenya, slang)A word mispronounced by replacing some consonant sounds with others of a similar place of articulation as influenced by one's mother tongue.

   “It is not only in face-to-face contexts that Kenyans police shrubbing; there are newspaper columns inviting readers to send in shrubs that they have witnessed, […]”

   “One of the first people to go on air on X Fm, Raabia (It’s not a kuyu [Kikuyu] shrub for labia) is about to exit the station, she’s being replaced by Mao (their lispy producer) […]”

verb

1. (obsolete)To lop; to prune.

   “The Papistes[…]though they be woll shrubbed, and shred, yet they begin euen nowe before the springe, to budde.”

2. (rare)To plant a shrub in a yard, garden, etc.; to prune a bush or other plant into a shrub.
3. (rare)To make or drink a shrub (liquor drink).
4. (Kenya, ambitransitive, slang)To mispronounce (a word or words) in another language in a manner that is influenced by one's mother tongue.

   “The people who benefit from making fun of shrubbing, therefore, are Kenyans who do not speak indigenous languages, because they are less likely to shrub than Kenyans who learned English as a second language in school and may have a heavier accent.”

   “However, Mwandani and her brother had noted that their mother had shrubbed and pointed it out right away.”

   “It is still considered embarrassing if people in authority like teachers or newscasters “shrub.””

name

1. (US, derogatory)George W. Bush (born 1946), the 43rd president of the United States (2001–2009).

   “Ann Richards [...] is running for reelection as Governor of Texas against George W. Bush, a Republican and the eldest son of the former President. […] She derides him as “all hat and no cattle.” […] Her followers hand out bumper stickers saying: “Don't elect the son-of-a-Bush.” They call him “Shrub.””

   “For the past five days, mostly in New York and SC, the Shrub has apparently been running ads that characterize McCain’s policy proposals in what Murphy terms a “willfully distorting” way.”

   “If this tax-cut were proposed in exactly opposite proportions, conservatives would be screaming about communist re-distribution of wealth and having aneurysms right and left. It’s much better when the rich take from the poor. After all, the American rich are oppressed and deserve this windfall. Shrub said so. It must be true.”

   “It seems that a recent letter opines that President Shrub deserves our loyalty simply because we can’t possibly know his decision making “unless we were to step into the role as president.” […] As to our inability to understand his choices, Shrub has a record in Texas.”

   “Less than 24 hours after the idiot Shrub gives that disasterous inaugural speech of his, the Shrub's daddy goes to the media to apologize to the world for his son's crazy talk. Shrub's daddy is now going around trying to reassure other countries that his son didn't really mean what he said and that he is not really going to invade them after all.”