🍅 A small fruit 🌱 A fruit plant

Mexican husk tomato

6.7

A small edible fruit like a tomato, wrapped in a dry papery husk

noun

: tomatillo

After peeling the papery covering, she chopped the Mexican husk tomato for the stew.

Examples

Salsa verde is made with Mexican husk tomatoes instead of regular tomatoes.
The market had a fresh batch of Mexican husk tomatoes for making sauces.
The Mexican husk tomato is a unique fruit.
I bought some Mexican husk tomatoes at the market.
Salsa verde is made with Mexican husk tomatoes instead of regular tomatoes.
After peeling the papery covering, she chopped the Mexican husk tomato for the stew.
The market had a fresh batch of Mexican husk tomatoes for making sauces.

Synonyms

tomatillo

vsMexican husk tomato

2 7.6

A small round green fruit with a thin papery husk used in Mexican cooking and the plant that grows it

is the broader local fruit term that also covers yellow color variants

husk tomato

vsMexican husk tomato

6.9

A small round fruit like a green tomato with a thin papery case

is the specific Mexican small fruit form commonly used in regional cooking

Surface Forms

Mexican husk tomato singular

Mexican husk tomatoes plural

Morphology

Mexican + husk + tomato

The noun is fully compositional: 'Mexican' signals origin, 'husk' indicates a protective covering, and 'tomato' denotes a tomato-like fruit, so a learner who knows the three words can infer it refers to a tomato-like plant from Mexico with a husk. There is no idiomatic or metaphorical shift and the naming pattern is cross-linguistically common, making the meaning immediately accessible.

Etymology

Mexican husk tomato comes from its look and where it grows: the small, tomato-like fruit from Mexico is wrapped in a thin, papery husk and is called 'tomatillo' in Spanish. That's why the name refers to the edible fruit used in many Mexican dishes.