kei apple
- noun
- /keɪ ˈæpəl/
- South African
:
manzana kei
- The kei apple thrives in warm climates and produces fruit in late summer.
Examples
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The hedge of kei apple was thick enough to keep animals out of the garden.
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Her grandmother makes a delicious jam from homegrown kei apple fruits.
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The kei apple is a unique fruit.
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Many gardeners love the kei apple for its taste.
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Her grandmother makes a delicious jam from homegrown kei apple fruits.
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The kei apple thrives in warm climates and produces fruit in late summer.
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Many gardeners love the kei apple for its sweet and juicy taste.
Synonyms
A spiny shrub from South Africa that grows round yellow fruit you can eat
A spiny shrub from South Africa that produces round yellow edible fruits
Surface Forms
Morphology
kei + apple
The compound follows the clear pattern 'X apple' where 'apple' signals a type/variety of fruit, so a learner who knows both constituents would likely infer it denotes a kind of apple. However 'kei' is a local/proper name not in general dictionaries and the shrub/botanical specifics (spiny shrub, South African origin) are cultural and not predictable from the parts, so the meaning is only partially inferable.
Etymology
Kei apple may come from the Kei River area in South Africa and from English people who used the word apple for new round fruits. So, the name gives the picture of a round fruit from the Kei area, and today it means the spiny shrub and its yellow fruit.
