American persimmon
- noun
- /əˈmɛrɪkən pərˈsɪmən/
- US
:
persimón americano
- We have American persimmons from our tree waiting in the freezer.
Examples
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American persimmons are amazing.
Blog text (28) -
American persimmons are amazing to cook with, much more intensely flavorful than the Asian varieties sold in markets.
Blog text (28) -
I have planted American persimmons hoping to get a productive female without success, and then I was very pleasantly surprised when a 'volunteer' in a neglected hedge started dropping fruit last year.
Blog text (28) -
In one of them, Kinsey suggested changing the manuscript entry for the American persimmon: "Since coming into a region where the persimmon is abundant as a native, I have intended to write you that we must surely change our remarks on this fruit."
Academic text (2006) -
The ripe American persimmon fell from the tree, ready to be made into delicious pudding.
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She picked several American persimmons from the garden to use in her autumn recipes.
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Eating an American persimmon is a delightful experience once its astringency has disappeared.
Synonyms
A medium-sized tree that makes orange fruit that becomes sweet when ripe
A medium-sized tree in dry southern and eastern United States woodlands with yellow-orange fruit tasting dry and bitter until ripe
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is directly compositional: 'American' (from the United States) simply specifies the origin/type of the noun 'persimmon' (a tree/fruit), so the overall meaning — a persimmon species native to America — is predictable from the parts. This adjective + noun pattern indicating origin or variety is cross-linguistically common and contains no idiomatic or metaphorical shift, so a B1 learner who knows both words will understand it.
Etymology
American persimmon names the native U.S. tree and its fruit, and the word persimmon likely comes from a Native American word for that fruit. The fruit is very dry and unpleasant until it is fully soft and sweet, so American persimmon today means the U.S. tree that produces a ripe, 'edible' fruit.
