Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Allspice, the berry of Pimenta officinalis (Eugenia Pimenta), a tree, native of the West Indies, but cultivated almost exclusively in Jamaica, whence called Jamaica pepper. The unripe berries, which are of about the size of a pea, are dried in the sun. The shell incloses two seeds, which are roundish and dark-brown, and have a weak aromatic taste and smell, thought to resemble a mixture of those of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, whence the name allspice. Pimento is a warm, aromatic stimulant, used chiefly as an adjuvant to tonics and purgatives. Both the fruit and the leaves yield an essential oil closely resembling oil of cloves and often substituted for it. The name pimento is sometimes used to include P. acris.
- n. The tree yielding this spice, a beautiful much-branching evergreen, 30 feet in height.
Wiktionary
- n. A red sweet pepper used to make relish, stuffed into olives, or used as spice.
- n. A tropical berry used to make allspice.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) Allspice; -- applied both to the tree and its fruit. See allspice.
- n. same as pimiento.
WordNet 3.0
- n. fully ripened sweet red pepper; usually cooked
- n. plant bearing large mild thick-walled usually bell-shaped fruits; the principal salad peppers
Etymologies
- From Spanish pimiento (Wiktionary)
- Spanish pimiento, red or green pepper, pepper plant, from pimienta, black pepper, pepper fruit, from Late Latin pigmenta, pl. of pigmentum, vegetable juice, condiment, pigment, from Latin, pigment, from pingere, to paint; see peig- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“But somewhere along the way, Texans, known for malapropisms and creative spellings, (heck, the name of the state is even a refashioning of a Caddoan word, Tejas, which means friends) took out the extra "i" and decided to call it pimento.”
“-- The odoriferous principle of allspice, commonly called pimento, is obtained by distilling the dried fruit, before it is quite ripe, of the _Eugenia pimenta_ and _Myrtus pimenta_ with water.”
The Art of Perfumery And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants
“He had also abundance of cabbage, from the cabbage-palms, and seasoned his food with the fruit of the pimento, which is the same with”
“However, I will note that when I checked the OED the first meaning of "pimento" was:”
“Well, that may help explain why I've never been sure what "pimento" really meant other than the red thing stuffed into the middle of green olives; since I hate all olives except California lye-process black, I don't much care about the details of that usage.”
“Wingate #711: Drifting a bit, ISTR that the "pimento" used to stuff olives and used variously in other canapes is in fact the same type of Capiscum which is dried for paprika.”
“Suddenly I realized what those little bright bits in the soup must've been: pimento which is basically roasted red pepper.”
“Chicken liver pate and one other dip to start (pesto? pimento? pumpkin? p-sour cream?) plus other cheap nibblies, like crisps and mixed nuts, and so on”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pimento’.
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genus capsicum
you may want to get a glass of water
(this is not strictly a list of cultivars; preparations and other related terms may be included)diablo grande, capsicum annuum, chile pequin, morita chile, fatalii, mulato chile, datil, tabiche, yatsafusa, red savina, dundicut, sriracha and 135 more...
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Spices: How Exotic!
That extra something that makes the dish pop.
white pepper, wasabi, vanilla, turmeric, tonka bean, tamarind, sumac, star anise, St. John's bread, Sichuan pepper, sesame seed, sassafras and 70 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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cutting words
sarcasm, sarx, sarcoptic, syssarcosis, shrew, shrewd, screed, scred, shroud, scroll, scrod, scrutiny and 326 more...
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Chromonyms
These chromonyms are defined as colors in at least one dictionary (mostly MW3). (Actually there's one fake, for reasons I'll explain someday.) They are all one-word nouns such as "kelly", which can...
absinthe, acacia, acorn, alabaster, alesan, almond, aloma, amaranth, amber, amethyst, anemone, anil and 821 more...
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encyclopedia gustatorica
béchamel, tart, pie, cupcake, roux, jambalaya, étouffé, succulent, plum, pomegranate, peach, apple and 300 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pimento.
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