tomato

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A widely cultivated South American plant (Lycopersicon esculentum) having edible, fleshy, usually red fruit.
2. n. The fruit of this plant.
3. n. Slang A woman regarded as attractive.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The fruit of a garden vegetable, Lycopersicum esculentum, native in tropical South America, now widely cultivated for its esculent fruit in temperate as well as tropical lands; also, the plant itself. The stem is ordinarily weak and reclining, much branched, becoming 4 feet long, but in a French variety—the upright or tree tomato—erect, and sustaining its own fruit. The leaves are interruptedly pinnate, and stain green by contact. It has a small yellow flower, the parts of which are often multiplied in cultivation. The fruit is a berry, normally one- or two-celled and small; under culture, often many-celled and complicated in structure as if by the union of several fruits, large and of a depressed-globose form. A simple pear-shaped form exists; and in one very distinct variety, L. cerasiforme, the cherry- or currant-tomato, the fruit is scarcely larger than a large currant, and is borne in long racemes. The color is commonly some tint of red, sometimes yellow, in one variety nearly white. The tomato-fruit is of a soft, pulpy texture and peculiar slightly acid flavor. It is nutritious and wholesome. with laxative and antiscorbutic properties. The tomato was introduced into Europe early in the sixteenth century; but its esculent use in northern countries began much later. In the United States it was known only as a curiosity till about 1830. It is often called love-apple, a translation of the French pomme d'amour, which is a corruption of the former Italian name pomo dei Mori, the plant having reached Italy through Morocco. From this name aphrodisiac properties have been ascribed to it.
2. n. See Cyphomandra.

Wiktionary

1. n. A widely cultivated plant, Solanum lycopersicum, having edible fruit
2. n. The savoury fruit of this plant, red when ripe, treated as a vegetable in horticulture
3. n. A shade of red, the colour of a ripe tomato.
4. n. A desirable-looking woman.
5. n. A stupid act or person.
6. v. to pelt with tomatoes
7. v. to add tomatoes to (a dish)

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The fruit of a plant of the Nightshade family (Lycopersicum esculentun); also, the plant itself. The fruit, which is called also love apple, is usually of a rounded, flattened form, but often irregular in shape. It is of a bright red or yellow color, and is eaten either cooked or uncooked.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. mildly acid red or yellow pulpy fruit eaten as a vegetable
2. n. native to South America; widely cultivated in many varieties