genipap
noun
Forms genipaps
- noun The North and South American tree Genipa americana of the family Rubiaceae.
- noun The fruit of this tree, oval in shape, as large as a small orange, of a pale greenish color, and with dark purple juice, traditionally used as a colorant.
Synonyms
Etymology
Borrowed from Brazilian Portuguese jenipapo, from Old Tupi îanypaba. The Tupi meaning of the word is variously given as yandi-pawa or yandi-pab (“fruit for painting”), yandi-ibá-pab (“fruit of the extremities for painting”), and without citation or explanation, “breast of an old woman”.
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “genipap”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details