akee
1
9.9
A red pear-shaped tropical fruit with poisonous seeds that must be cooked before eating
- noun
- /əˈki/
- UK
:
akee
- In Jamaica, a popular dish made with akee and saltfish is often served for breakfast.
Examples
-
She also brought a fruit called akee, which she said she used to eat from trees in Haiti, and it tasted fine to me, but she said akee can never be eaten before it's opened, or before it's ripe, because it makes your brain swell up and you can die.
Fiction book (2000) -
The akee is a tropical fruit that must be fully ripe before it can be safely eaten.
-
Carefully cooking akee is essential, as its unripe flesh is toxic.
Synonyms
1
9.9
A red pear-shaped tropical fruit with poisonous seeds and flesh safe to eat only when fully ripe
is the same meaning but is an alternate spelling
Compounds
Surface Forms
Etymology
Akee comes from a West African word, 'akye', that people used for the red, pear-shaped fruit before it reached the Caribbean. That's why English keeps the original name for the fruit that can be poisonous unless it is fully ripe and cooked.