Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A tall dioecious palm (Borassus flabellifer) of tropical Africa and Asia that has large fanlike leaves. Also called palmyra palm.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An East Indian palm, Borassus flabelliformis. It grows to a height of 80 or sometimes 100 feet, its cylindrical trunk bearing a round head of leaves which are 8 or 10 feet long, with a blade of circular outline, plaited and palmately incised. From it are obtained toddy and jaggery. Its fruit is eaten roasted and makes a jelly, and the roots of young seedlings are used as a vegetable. The wood of old trees is extremely hard and strong, is used for many purposes, and is to some extent exported. The leaves serve for thatching and for all manner of plaited ware, and, with those of the talipot, are universally used by the Hindus to write on with a style. It abounds in most parts of India, especially on sandy tracts near the sea, and makes a striking feature of the landscape
- n. [capitalized] In zoology, the typical genus of Palmyridæ. P. aurifera is a beautiful species, with gold-colored parapodia two inches long.
Wiktionary
- n. A palm, Borassus flabelliformis, with straight black upright trunk and palmate leaves, whose wood, fruit, and roots can be used for many purposes.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) A species of palm (Borassus flabelliformis) having a straight, black, upright trunk, with palmate leaves. It is found native along the entire northern shores of the Indian Ocean, from the mouth of the Tigris to New Guinea. More than eight hundred uses to which it is put are enumerated by native writers. Its wood is largely used for building purposes; its fruit and roots serve for food, its sap for making toddy, and its leaves for thatching huts.
WordNet 3.0
- n. tall fan palm of Africa and India and Malaysia yielding a hard wood and sweet sap that is a source of palm wine and sugar; leaves used for thatching and weaving
Etymologies
- Alteration (influenced by Palmyra ) of Portuguese palmeira, from palma, palm tree, from Latin; see palm2. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The banyan which they had chosen as their shelter was not one of the largest -- being only a young tree, but out of its top rose the huge fan-shaped leaves of a palm-tree of the kind known as the palmyra palm (_Borassus flagelliformis_).”
“It was found that these same dyes (especially the 1: 2 metal complex dyes) were, in general, also largely suitable for other palm leaves such as palmyra (Borassus flabellifer) and doum palm (Hyphaene spp.), pandanus leaves and vetiver grass.”
“The fruit of palmyra tree that is mistakenly called “Sea Coconut” (Nonggu in Tamil) (Borassus flabellifers), which is available during hot and dry season in Penang, South India, Thailand, and a few more countries near the equator, is extremely alkaline.”
“On a sandy street on the northern shore of the Jaffna Peninsula in Sri Lanka, an innocuous building surrounded by mango and palmyra trees houses a rehabilitation center run by a Catholic priest, who in January 2005 just days after the tsunami began to counsel survivors.”
The Huffington Post: Adele Barker: Heartbreak in Post-War Jaffna
“Any consciousness by which one describing the Tathagata would describe him: That the Tathagata has abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising.”
“Even so, Vaccha, any physical form by which one describing the Tathagata would describe him: That the Tathagata has abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising.”
“Naakan was too poor to own land; but he earned his living by taking on lease some coconut and palmyra trees, tapping and selling the toddy.”
“Constructed entirely from locally sourced and sustainably harvested palmyra, the home is sited on a working coconut plantation in the West Indian coastal town of Alibaug.”
“It tasted odd, like the taste of another fruit that I have never seen outside India (called the ice-apple or "tadgola") which is from another palm tree called the palmyra.”
“The palmyra appears here and there among trees not met with in the south.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘palmyra’.
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Quenelles of Random Palavery
More randomly-garnered terms from the world of words that don't quite yet fit into my other lists.
Goddidit, barcelona, filigrain, good-natured, ill-natured, half-bit, endosome, underplaying, parotid, denormalization, sleightgeist, wheezing and 2334 more...
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