How did the word “pineapple” come to be used as a term for the tropical fruit we all enjoy? It dosen’t look or taste like an apple, and it’s not tall like a pine tree. So who named it an why? Thanks
Big Riv
WAG
A fruit that looks like a pine cone?
Thas whut Webster sez funee,
Pine"ap`ple (?), n. (Bot.) A tropical plant (Ananassa sativa); also, its
fruit; – so called from the resemblance of the latter, in shape and
external appearance, to the cone of the pine tree.
but then how come we don’t call pine cones ‘pine apples’? that makes more sense. and how come grenades were called pine apples instead of pine cones? I guess i’d rather get hit with a pine cone than a pineapple but it still seems upside down to me.
“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx
It could be that apple, being a fairly generic word for fruit (possibly akin to corn being a generic term for whatever grain is locally plentiful to a region) got added on to the pine reference, and that it really means pinefruit?
Yes, that is a WAG…
Yer pal,
Satan
Thanks mr. john, I should’ve known to look at the dictionary before throwing out the WAG. Not a bad guess though, hey?
I notice that Spanish never messed with the ‘apple’ bit: ‘Piña’ < Lat. pinea, pine cone < pinus, pine.
I note also, Ger. ‘Ananas’, Du. & Ital. ‘ananas’, and Russ. the same (a<font size=1>H</font>a<font size=1>H</font>ac). Then I see that the Latin plant name for it is Ananas comosus. Sounds like unpollenized bananas (bananas w/o a bee) to me, but looking at a Latin prefix and a Latin suffix, both with the same spelling, one could believe this term refers to a ‘collection’ that grows ‘upward’, which is, I suppose, is what a bunch of bananas is. . .but I though we were talking about pineapples.
Ray (guess I’m off-tropic)
Also keep in mind that the word apple has two meanings. It can be used for a specific fruit but it is also used idiomatically as a term for fruit in general.
Pineapple can mean someone like Manual Noriega.
It’s true that apple can be a generic word for any fruit. Witness the pomegranate, or pomme-grenade, the “apple with (lots of) seeds” - from whence we get the word “grenade”, by the way. Also note the French word for potato: pomme de terre, “earth apple”.
This thread is gettin awful fruity. So we got the French throwin pommegranates, GI’s throwin pinapples and the Nazis throwin potatoe mashers back and the Tommy slippin on banana peels. (BTW the reason AMERICA won WW2 is because we played baseball, the Europeans played soccer. A live grenade would land the Europeans would start kickin it all around, we just picked it up and threw it back)
BANANA WITHOUT A B!!! man ,nano, you deserve a kick in tha assa for that. mmm I have Ananassa sativa nano has A.comosus However I find that the ‘common garden’ strawberry is Fragaria ananassa (L. for fragmentary grenade,which brings us back to pineapple) Well, dang i can’t find translation for any of the latin! A short time ago I knew what sativa meant but I forgot.
Pine apple; Ananassa sativa or ananas comosus ananas is the direct translation of pineapple in several languages mebbe a native name? and mebbee it IS conected with banana in some local language?
pine; genus Pinus, latin for Pine
pomegranate;Punica granatum Carthaginia(?) many seeded
Banana: Musa sapientum Musa arabic for banana sapientum wise?
apple:Pyrus malas a connection with fire? Apyrunus is pomegranate!
mala is jawbone, malacus is soft
Handgrenade: Blow usupus
Bee:Apis mellafera latin for BEE,mell-scent(?) fera- animal
Killer bee: Apis nonmessus ( mean as a one ton ape)
That’s why they are called pine apples, as you can see i got carried away. lucky no one brought up love apples ( the tomato) or why are they called 'GRAPE fruits", that one i could have answered. Its because when they are on the tree they appear to grow in bunches.
“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx
I believe Matt has it correct that often apple is applied to fruits that aren’t even apples at all. There’s a native plant here in California that the Spanish, when they arrived called them “Manzanita” which means “little apple”. The fruits of this plant look more like berries than apples (about 1/4 inch in diameter).
The Italian name for the tomato, which is pomodoro means “apple of gold” (pomo - apple di - of oro - gold). The gold part is in “pomodoro” because I think I heard somewhere that tomatoes were of a yellow color originally.
Mr. John: I don’t mean to take away from that rather funny post of yours, but your botanical latin is wrong on some of those examples:
Apple is more known as: Malus pumila (small malus, and the Malus genus includes crabapples), and Pyrus malus is a synonym (Pyrus is the genus name for the pears).
The species name for the bee is “mellifera” and it means “honey Bearing” (As in the name for the California native plant, Salvia mellifera).
A pineapple is a bromeliad - a close relative of the Spanish moss, the urn plant, and a few more exotic plants.
My dictionary gives the following scientific names:
Apple: Malus sylvestris.
Pineapple: Ananas comosus.
Pomegranate: Punica granatum.
Banana: Musa paradisaea.
What’s the Latin for fruit cocktail?
Ray