Plum

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /plʌm/

Definitions

1. A smooth-skinned fruit with sweet flesh and a hard pit in the center, typically purple or red in color
2. A type of fruit characterized by its smooth skin, sweet interior, and a central hard seed, often found in hues of purple or red
3. This fruit features a tender, sweet flesh surrounded by a thin, smooth outer layer and contains a single hard stone in its center

Etymology: The plum is a fruit that travelled a long way before reaching English. Its ancestor was the Greek "proûmnon," which passed into Latin as "prūnum," and the Romans carried it across Europe. Along the way the Latin word was reshaped in spoken Vulgar Latin, and Germanic speakers borrowed it into the form that became Old English "plūme." The English word and the word "prune" are doublets: two words descended from the same Latin source, one arriving directly in its Germanic-shaped form and the other coming in later through French. The same Latin root gave English two different fruits, one eaten fresh and one dried, which is why the pair looks so different on the page.

Synonyms: fruit