bitter orange tree
- noun
:
naranjo amargo
- The bitter orange tree produced small, sour oranges that were perfect for making marmalade.
Examples
-
To plant a bitter orange tree in the ditches so as to dispel the darkness?
Fiction book (2001) -
The gardener decided to plant a bitter orange tree in the orchard to improve the soil for other citrus fruits.
-
Bitter orange trees are often used as bitter orange tree rootstock for grafting sweeter varieties.
Synonyms
1
5.0
A tree that makes bitter oranges used as root for other orange trees and for marmalade
1
6.5
A bitter sour orange used to make marmalade and to grow other citrus trees
1
8.5
A small tree with fragrant flowers and bitter, inedible fruit
A type of orange tree that produces small sour fruit and is used for grafting and marmalade
An orange tree with bitter fruit used for marmalade and flavoring
A type of orange tree that makes bitter fruit and is used to grow other orange trees
A small orange tree that makes sour fruit used for marmalade and to start new orange trees
Antonyms
How Sweet
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is fully compositional: 'bitter' (having a sharp/sour taste) modifies 'orange' and combined with 'tree' yields an orange tree that produces bitter fruit. This noun-noun modification pattern is a standard, transparent English compound (and has close equivalents in many languages), so a B1 learner who knows the component words should be able to infer the meaning.
Etymology
Bitter orange tree comes from the tree's very sour fruit: the word bitter describes the strong, sharp taste and orange is the fruit. That's why people use it to make marmalade and why gardeners use it as a strong base to join with sweet orange trees.