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  1. okra love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A tall tropical Asian annual plant (Abelmoschus esculentus) widely cultivated in warm regions for its edible, mucilaginous green pods.
  2. n. The edible pods of this plant, used in soups and as a vegetable. Also called regionally gumbo.
  3. n. See gumbo.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A plant, Hibiscus esculentus, an esteemed vegetable, cultivated in the East and West Indies, the southern United States, etc. See gumbo. Its seeds yield a fine food-oil, not, however, extracted on a commercially remunerative scale, and it produces a fiber apparently suitable for coarse bagging, etc. See Hibiscus and Abelmoschus.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The annual plant, Abelmoschus esculentus, possibly of Ethiopian origin, grown for its edible pods.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Bot.) An annual plant (Abelmoschus esculentus syn. Hibiscus esculentus), whose green pods, abounding in nutritious mucilage, are much used for soups, stews, or pickles; gumbo.
  2. n. The pods of the plant okra, used as a vegetable; also, a dish prepared with them; gumbo.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. long mucilaginous green pods; may be simmered or sauteed but used especially in soups and stews
  2. n. long green edible beaked pods of the okra plant
  3. n. tall coarse annual of Old World tropics widely cultivated in southern United States and West Indies for its long mucilaginous green pods used as basis for soups and stews; sometimes placed in genus Hibiscus

Etymologies

  1. Probably from Igbo ọkụrụ. (Wiktionary)
  2. Of West African origin; akin to Akan (Twi) nkruma. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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synonyms (2)

Words with the same meaning

  1. gumbo
  1. ladies' fingers

hypernyms (7)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. veg
  1. veggie
  1. vegetable
  1. seedpod
  1. pod
  1. herbaceous plant
  1. Herb

same context (20)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. zucchini
  2. broccoli
  3. brocoli
  4. lentil
  1. chives
  2. avocado
  3. spinach
  4. capsicum
  1. kale
  2. hominy
  3. cucumber
  4. chard
  1. pumpkin
  2. kohl-rabi
  3. squash
  4. parsnip
  1. turnip
  2. bologna
  3. macaroni
  4. watercress

reverse dictionary (18)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. malvaceae
  2. bandaka
  3. gumbo
  1. musk-okra
  2. ochra
  3. ochro
  1. bhindi
  2. ocra
  3. mallow family
  1. Malvaceae
  2. gobbo
  3. callaloo
  1. family malvaceae
  2. okra
  3. Brunswick stew
  1. Abelmoschus
  2. pepper pot
  3. cuajilote

tags (2)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. earworm
  1. earworm alert

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tagging (2)

Words tagged ‘okra’

  1. lady fingers
  1. malvaceae

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Lists

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Comments

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  • hernesheir The first definition herein incorrectly refers okra to the pods/fruits of a leguminous plant. Okra is a member of the Malvaceae, or mallow family of plants.

    Elsewhere this term refers to the soft, edible, beaked, mucilaginous green capsular fruits of Abelmoschus esculentus, a.k.a. Hibiscus esculentus, and lady fingers. The green pods are either battered and fried, or stewed (commonly with diced tomatoes and onions), or used as an ingredient and thickener (due to its mucilage) in gumbo in the southern US and elsewhere. Jan 4, 2009

  • reesetee I still want to know what the Arabic word is for “to cut off the upper end of an okra.�?

    *wondering and humming* Jan 10, 2008

  • chained_bear Great. Now every time I see this word, apparently, I'm going to start singing sionnach's song. *humming* ohhhhhhh-kra-mohel... Jan 10, 2008

  • jennarenn Amazing. We've found something just a little too weird for Weird Al. Jan 10, 2008

  • chained_bear skipvia, I'm sure you resemble Johnny Depp in many ways---and at least one of them is "not at all." ;)

    OHHHHHHHKRA-MOHEL where the wind comes sweepin' down the ... well. Those lyrics don't really work. *earworm alert!* Jan 10, 2008

  • seanahan That's a great article from the New York Times, which for me is saying a lot, since I have very little respect for that paper. Jan 10, 2008

  • skipvia Actually, Charleston is not my okra-homa. It's Rock Hill.

    Many people point out how much I resemble Johnny Depp. Which is not at all. Jan 10, 2008

  • sionnach Hmmm. Now I have this ineradicable image of Johnny Depp playing skipvia in "Skipvia: the demon mohel of Charleston" Jan 10, 2008

  • reesetee Good grief, sionnach, what are they feeding you these days? ;-) Jan 10, 2008

  • reesetee Apparently the author means to torture us by not telling us what the word is. Otherwise, you can be sure I'd have Wordiefied it! Jan 10, 2008

  • sionnach "Circumcise"? Which would make skipvia an okra-mohel I think there's a song about it:

    OOOOOOOO-KRA-MOHEL ...... Jan 10, 2008

  • skipvia What yarb said. I spent a lot of my early years doing exactly that (okra grows in profusion in South Carolina) and now I want to know what to call it. Jan 10, 2008

  • yarb But what WAS that word?! Jan 10, 2008

  • reesetee For anyone who knows only European languages, to wade into Arabic is to discover an endlessly strange and yet oddly ordered lexical universe. Some words have definitions that go on for pages and seem to encompass all possible meanings; others are outlandishly precise. Paging through the dictionary one night, I found a word that means “to cut off the upper end of an okra.�? -- "Arabic Lessons," Robert F. Worth, New York Times, Jan. 6, 2008 Jan 9, 2008

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‘okra’ has been looked up 3078 times, added to 22 lists, commented on 14 times, and has a Scrabble score of 8.