fig

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“
While a fig is arousing because of its inherent beauty, other foods are enticing due to the manner in which they are consumed.

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Definitions (64)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (7)

  1. noun Any of several trees or shrubs of the genus Ficus, especially F. carica, native to the Mediterranean region and widely cultivated for its edible multiple fruit.
  2. noun The sweet, hollow, pear-shaped, multiple fruit of this plant, having numerous tiny seedlike fruits.
  3. noun Any of several plants bearing similar fruit.
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Examples (50)

  • Consider the Duma, created as a fig-leaf for Romanov imperial power but which outlived not only them but the USSR itself. —  Shuggy's Blog
  • Barak was seeking some way to avoid that fate, and his opportunity arose because Netanyahu was looking for a fig-leaf. —  Embassy
  • Netanyahu doesn't really even need Barak as a fig-leaf, because he doesn't have to lift a finger to prevent the two-state solution. —  Embassy
  • He didn't trust Arafat for an instant, but he still embraced Oslo, as the fig-leaf for a retreat to more defensible lines. —  The American Scene
  • Further, the talk of freedom and WMD can easily be seen as a fig-leaf for wrong-headedness wedded to a lack of interest in the facts. —  Futurismic
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Etymologies (7)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English, from Old French figue, from Old Provençal figa, from Vulgar Latin *fīca, from Latin fīcus.
  2. Perhaps from fig, to trot out a horse in lively condition, dress up, variant of feague, to make a horse lively, probably from Dutch vegen, to brush, from Middle Dutch vēghen.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (5)

  1. Another form, with sonant g for surd k, of fick, fike, q. v. Hence the assibilated form fidge, and freq. fidget, q. v.
  2. from Middle English fig, fyg, fygge, plural figes, figis, figgus (rarely fyke, from Anglo-Saxon fīc), a fig-tree, a fig, also piles, from Old French figue, fige (prob. from Provencal), also fie, French figue = Provencal figa, figua, also fia = Spanish higo, Old Spanish Portuguese figo = Italian fico = Anglo-Saxon fīc (in comp.) = Old Saxon fīga— D. vijg = Middle Low German vige = Old High German fīga, Middle High German vige, German feige = Icelandic fīkja = Old Swedish fika, Swedish fikon = Danish figen, from Latin fīcus, feminine (rarely masculine), a fig-tree, a fig, also the piles.
  3. from fig, n.
  4. An abbreviation of figure, perhaps in ref. to this abbreviation (“Fig. 1,” etc.) in fashion plates.
  5. from fig , n.
 

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/fɪg/
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