Jaffa orange

4.2

A sweet orange with thick skin and almost no seeds

noun

: naranja Jaffa

During our trip to Israel, we enjoyed delicious Jaffa oranges fresh from the market.

Examples

We wish the people of Israel well, nothing but well, but we reserve the right not to eat Jaffa oranges as long as they taste foul and are poisonous.

Blog text (19)
The Jaffa orange is known for its sweetness and lack of seeds, making it a favorite among fruit lovers.
She packed a few Jaffa oranges in her lunch because they are juicy and easy to peel.

Synonyms

orange

vsJaffa orange

126 1.0

A round fruit with sweet juicy flesh and a bright skin you peel

is a sweet almost seedless variety from Israel with thicker skin and extra juiciness

Surface Forms

Jaffa orange singular

Jaffa oranges plural

Morphology

Jaffa + orange

This is compositional: a B1 learner who knows 'Jaffa' as a place and 'orange' as the fruit will infer it denotes an orange from Jaffa (i.e., a variety/origin). While finer attributes (seedless, thickness of skin) are encyclopedic details, the core referential meaning is transparently derived from the constituents and follows a common place+product naming pattern.

Etymology

Jaffa orange comes from the area around the city of Jaffa, where this 'sweet', almost 'seedless' orange was first grown and packed to sell abroad. Because its thick skin kept it fresh on long sea trips from Jaffa, the place name became the word for this juicy variety today.