Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An evergreen, usually dioecious, tropical American tree (Carica papaya) having a crown of palmately divided leaves with pinnate lobes and large yellow edible fruit.
- n. The fruit of this tree.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A former genus of trees, the papaws, of the order Passifloraceæ, now included in Carica. See Carica and papaw.
- n. [lowercase] A tree of this genus.
Wiktionary
- n. A tropical American evergreen tree, Carica papaya, having large, yellow, edible fruit
- n. The fruit of this tree.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) A tree (Carica Papaya) of tropical America, belonging to the order Passifloreæ; called also
papaw andpawpaw . It has a soft, spongy stem, eighteen or twenty feet high, crowned with a tuft of large, long-stalked, palmately lobed leaves. The milky juice of the plant is said to have the property of making meat tender. - n. The fruit of the papaya tree; it is a dull orange-colored, melon-shaped fruit, which is eaten both raw and cooked or pickled. The fruit contains papain, a protease.
WordNet 3.0
- n. tropical American shrub or small tree having huge deeply palmately cleft leaves and large oblong yellow fruit
- n. large oval melon-like tropical fruit with yellowish flesh
Etymologies
- From Spanish, originally from Arawak papáia (Wiktionary)
- Spanish and Portuguese, both of Cariban origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Anon papaya is a cultured palate some don't like it.”
“Probably the most popular breakfast fruit in México, papaya is also a favorite licuado ingredient.”
Exotic summer refreshment: a guide to Mexico's tropical fruit
“Mango works on its own but papaya is massively bland without it.”
“But in Cuban Spanish, the word papaya means 'vagina.”
“On the road, Ms. Lo learned to cook with items such as green papaya, which is currently served with duck and cashews at Annisa.”
The Wall Street Journal: Braised Escarole With Seared Bay Scallops
“For while they lie basking in the sun, without care of theirs, the cocoanut, the breadfruit, the yam, the guava, the banana, and the delicious papaya, which is a compound of a ripe apricot with a Cantaloupe melon, grow and ripen perpetually.”
“As I write in 2004, the only other significant engineered U.S. crop is Hawaiian papaya, which is now resistant to a formerly devastating virus disease.”
Simon & Schuster: On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
“Top the dish off with an exotic garnish of fresh, silky papaya, which is a very good source of vitamins A and C. Shopping tips: If desired, use frozen, uncooked large shelled and deveined shrimp, thawed and well - drained, instead of fresh shrimp.”
“The papaya is a tropical melonlike fruit found growing in semitropical climes like that of Cuba, Hawaii, Southern California, Florida, and Mexico; the papaw is a watermelon-shaped fruit about three to four inches long ....”
“La Parroquia (Calle 55 between Calle 10 and Calle 12; open 24 hours), next to a billiard hall near the central plaza, serves dessert drinks such as papaya milkshakes in huge goblets for about $1.50.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘papaya’.
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SCIE - EU nomenclature
All the scientific words found in the official EU nomenclature. For the screening I used Vocabgrabber of the Visual Thesaurus.
abdominal, absorbent, accelerator, accumulator, acebutolol, acetamide, acetanilide, acetate, acetic acid, acetone, acetous, acetyl and 1171 more...
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Palabras con una sola vocal
Lista de palabras en español que tienen una sóla vocal y con más de tres sÃlabas.
imprimir, horóscopo, palabras, odontólogo, entender, acababa, abracadabra, joropo, encender, apagar, endeble, neceser and 244 more...
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Russian Doll Words
A Russian Doll word is a word that, when you remove the first and last letters, is either the empty string, or a Russian Doll word. These are all of the 6 or more letter Russian Doll words found in...
waspiness, upraisers, strainers, sporangia, raspiness, prelatess, methanals, gaspiness, washings, uprisers, upraises, upraiser and 2373 more...
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IMCO - EU nomenclature
includes words of the "Prodcom list"
abaca, abdominal, abrasive, absorbent, absorber, accelerator, accessory, account book, accumulator, acebutolol, acetaldehyde, acetamide and 4515 more...
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Uncommon Colours
azure, myrtle, periwinkle, viridian, jade, emerald, lime, chartreuse, asparagus, celadon, harlequin, olive and 147 more...
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Orange
amber, apricot, carrot, burnt, papaya, flame, persimmon, peach, rust, tangerine, tangelo, sunset
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Fruits
orange, banana, lime, lemon, pineapple, apple, papaya, blueberry, mulberry, cranberry, pear, raspberry and 16 more...
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Fruit, Sex and Other Morsels
Because drippy passionfruit, and he was pricked pineapple but sometime around cherry durian blond twins started persimmon, lychee papaya and before we knew it, quince plum mango mango and O O O Ora...
sweetsop, canistel, velvet apple, sticky, viscid, ganache, damson, rambutan, papain, fruit bat, spread, cream and 6 more...
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
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Color Words for Shoes
Vendors can get oddly creative.
amaranth, brindle, iguana, slate black, madder brown, bison, pinecone, seal brown, forest night, burnt orange, monument, beet red and 399 more...
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maygra
apropos, advantageous, perception, discombobulated, adumbrate, apogee, perihelion, mortmain, solitudinous, mediastinus, asumbrative, traveler and 498 more...
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Foodie
As much fun to say as they are to eat.
blueberry, cider, almond, apricot, asparagus, banana, fudge, foldover, flapjacks, filbert, fig, biscuit and 217 more...
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kimo2000's Words
pakalolo, miliated, voodoo, vindaloo, hacienda, acquiesce, addlepated, olio, akimbo, apropos, oogenesis, arugula and 181 more...
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spoon
being items relating to food, cooking and the kitchen.
spoon, fork, beef, slice, dozen, eggs, simmer, broil, salad, soup, stock, lard and 287 more...
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Mollusque's miscellany
A mixture of words that I like or have commented on, along with ones parked here so they'd be listed somewhere or remind me of lists I want to make.
oranger, monographer, preoccupied, bu, bobization, coinventor, tetrapyloctomy, borgmannian, suspercollate, manhug, mancrush, obituarist and 604 more...
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NakedFringe's Words
masticate, chamber, orchid, mandolin, yellow, pomegranate, conundrum, paradox, gyrate, calamitous, opalescent, cacophony and 533 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for papaya.

ruzuzu Brackets around "schwa-aye-schwa" please, pterodactyl. Jan 19, 2011
mollusque Pterodactyl, the longest left-handed Dvorak keyboard words I've found are epopoeia, jipijapa, peekapoo, and quiaquia; longest right-handed is crwth. Apr 6, 2008
reesetee Thank you! I'll have to add them all to my list.
Edit: Mollusque, I didn't realize you had your own typewriter list--thanks for the reference there! :-) Apr 5, 2008
mollusque Johnny-jump-up and phyllophyllin. Apr 5, 2008
reesetee How about right-handed? Apr 5, 2008
mollusque There are a few English words longer than "stewardesses" that can be typed left-handed: detractresses (13 letters), and tesseradecades, aftercataracts, and sweaterdresses (14 letters). Apr 5, 2008
pterodactyl I think that "papaya" is a perfectly logical euphemism. Even the words sound similar -- they share that "schwa-aye-schwa" vowel pattern. Apr 5, 2008
Prolagus Then, either the three of us are all sick, or it resembles something that I named before. Apr 5, 2008
bilby Only to scoop out the seeds. And then? Apr 5, 2008
Prolagus I have to tell you, my friends.
In my house, we (I, my housemate, my lifemate and any guest) use papaya as a synonym of vagina. Ever cut a papaya in halves? Apr 5, 2008
bilby In my next incarnation as one-armed papaya salesman, it's gonna be Dvorak all the way, baby. Apr 5, 2008
reesetee PT, you may want to check out my Sound of One Hand Typing list. I have "stewardess" on there, but not the plural. And I haven't done a Dvorak keyboard version yet. :-) Apr 4, 2008
pterodactyl I vaguely remember hearing that "papaya" is the longest word you can type with one hand on a Dvorak keyboard, and that this is supposed to be a selling point for Dvorak keyboards.
I also remember hearing that "stewardesses" is the longest word you can type with one hand on a QWERTY keyboard, but that memory is more vague, and probably false. Apr 4, 2008
chained_bear sionnach, I always thought the difference was akin to that between sphere and circle. I could be wrong though. Signed, Too Lazy to Check. Dec 8, 2007
bilby I think sionnach and I should go to the market. As friends, mind you, as friends. Dec 8, 2007
sionnach Can fruit really be oblong? I know that the Japanese have genetically engineered cubic grapefruit, for ease of packing. But, in the wild, are there really oblong fruit?
This comment is based on a prior belief that oblong implied a rectilinear aspect, in addition to the 'longer than it is wide' property. Some random google checking would suggest that oblong objects may not necessarily have corners. In which case I fail to understand the difrerence between oblong and oval. Dec 8, 2007
jennarenn Yeah, pregnant women usually have enough papapapapain to look forward to already. ;) Dec 8, 2007
bilby After having skinned my bonce on these in the jungles of Asia, I resent WordNET claiming them as American. Besides, when they splitted open on my forehad they were as often red or orange as yellow. The green ones didn't break usually because they were unripe; grated, they make a damn good salad in Cambodia. The leaves are eaten in Asia as a kind of vegetable. They're very bitter and not recommended for pregnant women presumably because of the papain levels. Dec 8, 2007
reesetee Good grief. Dec 8, 2007
sonofgroucho Where would we be without phrases like "huge deeply palmately cleft leaves"? I feel quite aroused. Dec 8, 2007
bilby I shoot WordNET. Now. Dec 8, 2007