Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A chestnut (Castanea pumila) of eastern North America that grows as a shrub or small tree.
  • noun Any of several evergreen trees or shrubs of the family Fagaceae, including species in the genera Chrysolepis of western North America and Castanopsis of East and Southeast Asia.
  • noun The edible nut of any of these plants.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See chinkapin.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A branching, nut-bearing tree or shrub (Castanea pumila) of North America, from six to twenty feet high, allied to the chestnut. Also, its small, sweet, edible nat.
  • noun a small shrubby oak (Quercus prinoides) of the Atlantic States, with edible acorns.
  • noun an evergreen shrub or tree (Castanopes chrysophylla) of the Pacific coast. In California it is a shrub; in Oregon a tree 30 to 125 feet high.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun any of the shrubs in the genus Castanopsis
  • noun any of the several trees and shrubs in the genus Chrysolepis
  • noun some of the species in the chestnut genus Castanea
  • noun chinkapin oak (Quercus muhlenbergii), a species of oak whose leaves resemble those of chinkapins
  • noun water-chinquapin, the water plant Nelumbo lutea, American lotus
  • noun the redear sunfish (Lepomis microlophus)

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun small nut of either of two small chestnut trees of the southern United States; resembles a hazelnut
  • noun shrubby chestnut tree of southeastern United States having small edible nuts
  • noun shrubby tree closely related to the Allegheny chinkapin but with larger leaves; southern midwestern United States

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Of Algonquian origin; akin to Virginia Algonquin chechinkamin, chestnut.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word chinquapin.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.