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Glite Dictionary
pawpaw fruit

pawpaw fruit

3.2
A tropical fruit with sweet orange flesh eaten fresh
  • noun
  • /ˈpɔːpɔː ˈfruːt/
  • Australian
translation icon : papaya
  • She made a smoothie with pawpaw fruit, banana, and yogurt.

Examples

  • Ripe pawpaw fruit is delicious in salads or eaten fresh on its own.

  • The market has a variety of tropical fruits, including pawpaw fruit and mangoes.

  • I love eating pawpaw fruit in the summer.

  • What a delicious pawpaw fruit!

  • Ripe pawpaw fruit is delicious in salads or eaten fresh on its own.

  • She made a smoothie with pawpaw fruit, banana, and yogurt.

  • I love eating pawpaw fruit in the summer.

Synonyms

papaya
vspawpaw fruit
19 2.4

A large tropical fruit with sweet orange flesh and black seeds

emphasizes health value and alternate name rather than physical size
pawpaw
vspawpaw fruit
  • US
1 5.5

A soft yellow fruit with sweet, creamy flesh from North America

describes a tropical orange-fleshed fruit rather than the North American variety
papaia
vspawpaw fruit
  • Archaic
8.1

A tropical tree that produces large sweet yellow fruit

focuses on the edible tropical fruit and its sweet nutritional value

How Sweet

date
276 1.0
mango
34 1.0
pawpaw fruit
  • Australian
3.2
apple
583 1.0
lime
107 1.0

Surface Forms

pawpaw fruit singular
pawpaw fruits plural
papayas plural
papaya singular

Morphology

pawpaw + fruit

The compound is fully compositional: 'pawpaw' already names an edible fruit and 'fruit' specifies its category, so a learner who knows both words will understand this refers to the pawpaw/papaya fruit. The meaning is literal and cross-linguistically recognizable (many languages name this fruit similarly), so the expression is immediately predictable to B1 learners.

Etymology

The noun pawpaw fruit may come from the spoken Spanish and Caribbean word 'papaya', which English ears heard as a repeated 'paw-paw' sound and turned into pawpaw. That's why pawpaw fruit today means the same sweet, orange-fleshed tropical fruit often called 'papaya'.