apricot

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a small round stone fruit with yellow-orange flesh and lightly fuzzy skin

   She sliced a ripe apricot into the breakfast bowl.

2. 2
   noun

   the tree that produces apricots

   The apricot blossomed before the other fruit trees in the garden.

3. 3
   adj

   having a pale yellow-orange or pinkish-orange color

   The room was painted a soft apricot shade.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Apricot ultimately comes from Latin praecocum, “early-ripening,” in the Roman name malum praecocum, “early-ripening apple.” The word passed through Byzantine Greek perikokkon, Arabic al-birquq, Spanish albaricoque, and Portuguese albricoque before entering 16th-century English as albrecock; the modern form was probably influenced by French abricot and perhaps Latin apricus “ripe.”

Through French abricot and Catalan abricoc from Arabic al-barquq, ultimately from Late Latin praecoquum ("early-ripening fruit"). The Latin word is related to praecox, source of English precocious; the initial a- reflects the Arabic article al-.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary