textile screw pine
- noun
- Australian
:
pandanus
- The leaves of the textile screw pine are traditionally woven into mats in many island communities.
Examples
-
After harvesting, she dried the textile screw pine leaves for basket weaving.
-
The Pacific region relies on the textile screw pine for a variety of everyday uses.
-
The textile screw pine grows abundantly in Hawaii.
-
Many artisans use textile screw pines to create beautiful mats.
-
The leaves of the textile screw pine are traditionally woven into mats in many island communities.
-
After harvesting, she dried the textile screw pine leaves for basket weaving.
-
Many artisans use textile screw pine to create beautiful hats and mats.
Synonyms
A tropical tree with long leaves that people weave into mats and hats
A tree by the sea with long leaves and fruit people eat and use for weaving
A tropical tree with strong roots that grow above the ground, long narrow leaves, and conelike edible fruit
Surface Forms
Morphology
The modifier 'textile' clearly signals a connection to fabrics, so a learner knowing that word would infer the plant has a use in weaving or cloth production. However, 'screw pine' is a lexicalized plant name where 'pine' is misleading (it is not a true pine) and the sense of 'screw' (referring to spiral leaf arrangement) is not predictable at B1, so the full botanical meaning is not fully derivable from the parts. This yields partial transparency: one element cues the use but the specific plant identity and sense of 'screw pine' require prior exposure.
Etymology
Textile screw pine is named for how it looks and what people do with it: its long leaves twist in a spiral like a screw, and those strong leaves are used like cloth, so the word textile shows this use. The name also uses pine because the leaves look a little like pine needles, so the whole name points to a plant whose fibrous leaves are used to 'weave' mats and hats.
