papaya

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The fruit of this tree.

   It was that image, its practical mundanity, the preparation of fruit I have seen you do a thousand times, the spoon gliding along the papaya’s flesh-orange core, a slush of black seeds plopping into the steel sink, that made it unbearable.

2. 2
   noun

   large oval melon-like tropical fruit with yellowish flesh

3. 3
   noun

   tropical American shrub or small tree having huge deeply palmately cleft leaves and large oblong yellow fruit

4. 4
   noun

   A tropical American evergreen tree, Carica papaya, having large, yellow, edible fruit.

5. 5
   noun

   An orange colour, like that of papaya flesh.

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish papaya, from Lokono papáia. Possibility a doublet of pawpaw.