Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A wild variety of Mediterranean fig (Ficus carica var. sylvestris) used in the caprification of certain edible figs.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The uncultivated male form of common fig, Ficus Carica, which is practically diœcious, though staminate and pistillate flowers are found upon the same tree. The fruit of the caprifig is hard and useless, but is the home of a small gnat-like gall-insect, Blastophaga grossorum, which in escaping from the orifice covers itself with pollen and thus becomes a means for effecting the fertilization of the edible fig. See
caprification .
Wiktionary
- n. A fig tree which produces both male and female flowers and is used to fertilize the female trees of the species.
- n. The accessory fruit of this tree, which is considered inedible by humans.
WordNet 3.0
- n. wild variety of the common fig used to facilitate pollination of certain figs
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Latin caprifīcus (influenced by Middle English fig, fig) : caper, capr-, goat + fīcus, fig; see fig1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“For there is a slight distinction of this sort, since even in plants we find in the same kind some trees which bear fruit and others which, while bearing none themselves, yet contribute to the ripening of the fruits of those which do, as in the case of the fig-tree and caprifig.”
“Some erroneously assert that all fish are female except in the cartilaginous fishes, for they think that the females of fish differ from what are supposed to be males only in the same way as in those plants where the one bears fruit but the other is fruitless, as olive and oleaster, fig and caprifig.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘caprifig’.
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Fruits of Linguistic Invention
bananosecond, fruitylicious, appled, kiwiclock, boomorange, damsonic, pearforate, graspberry, squince, datelier, caroberate, plumpire and 143 more...
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EN - newSPEAK
Buzzwords of our time
actionable, administrivia, advermation, agreeance, backbone provider, back-sourcing, baked in, bandwidth, barn raising, Barneyware, belly-buttons, Below Zeros and 1078 more...
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Rognons of Random Palavery
Another of my random palavery lists for terms and phrases that don't fit into any of my other lists.
priorship, exigeant, refectory, reestablish, capper, reesed, quar, reprune, orificial, reaming-iron, terminist, terminism and 3097 more...
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Professional Scrabble Lexicon (TWL)
A myriad of game-changing words every Scrabble addict must have in his arsenal.
Keep in mind that these are all tried-and-true feasibly playable words selected for their handiness, i.e...paragon, pignora, ganef, suttee, origan, ohia, aioli, abasement, lehr, mho, tallow, harelike and 848 more...
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Exotic Tastes
Interesting words related to food, ingredients, dishes, cookery, cuisines and so on. Exotic in this case is entirely subjective, with funkelberries on top.
tatty, neep, flummery, babaganoush, tahini, samphire, loblolly, scrumpy, fressen, luwak, duxelle, edamame and 213 more...
Tweets
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