Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🥭 A tropical fruit 🌳 A tropical tree
mammee apple

mammee apple

9.9
A large tropical fruit with thick brown skin and sweet yellow or red flesh
  • noun
  • US
translation icon : mamey
  • He offered us slices of mammee apple fresh from his garden.

Examples

  • The mammee apple is a favorite fruit in many Caribbean countries.

  • The mammee apples in this region are quite sweet.

  • At the market, baskets of ripe mammee apples stood out among the tropical fruits.

  • I bought a mammee apple from the market.

  • At the market, baskets of ripe mammee apples stood out among the tropical fruits.

  • He offered us slices of mammee apple fresh from his garden.

  • The mammee apple is a favorite fruit in many Caribbean countries.

Synonyms

mammee
vsmammee apple
  • US
1 9.9

A large tropical fruit with thick brown skin and sweet yellow or red flesh

is the same fruit but without regional origin stated
mamey
vsmammee apple
  • US
9.9

A large tropical fruit with thick skin and sweet orange or red flesh

emphasizes larger size and rough brown skin rather than just typical shape

Surface Forms

mammee apple singular
mammee apples plural

Morphology

mammee + apple

The noun–noun compound directly denotes the fruit of the mammee tree, so a learner who knows 'mammee' (a tropical tree) and 'apple' (a fruit) can compositionally infer 'mammee apple' as the edible fruit of that tree. This kind of straightforward referential compounding is cross-linguistically common and follows regular English noun–noun formation, making it transparent to B1 learners who know the constituents.

Etymology

Mammee apple may come from a local Caribbean word for this round, sweet fruit, and early European visitors added apple because the fruit is large and apple-like. That's why the name refers to this juicy tropical 'fruit'.