Definitions

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

  • noun Any of various trees or shrubs of the genus Ficus, especially F. carica, native to the Mediterranean region and widely cultivated for its edible multiple fruit.
  • noun The sweet, hollow, pear-shaped, multiple fruit of this plant, having many tiny seedlike fruits.
  • noun Any of several plants bearing similar fruit.
  • noun The fruit of such a plant.
  • noun A trivial or contemptible amount.
  • noun Dress; array.
  • noun Physical condition; shape.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The common name for species of the genus Ficus, and for their fruit.
  • noun A name given to various plants having a fruit somewhat resembling the fig.
  • noun A florideous alga, Callithamnion floridulum.
  • noun The fig-tree.
  • noun A raisin.
  • noun In farriery, an excrescence on the frog of a horse's foot following a bruise.
  • noun A contemptuous gesture, pretended to be of Spanish origin, which consisted in thrusting out the thumb between the first and second fingers. Also called fig of Spain and fico.
  • noun As a colloquial standard of value or consideration, the merest trifle; the least bit: as, your opinion is not worth a fig; I don't care a fig for it.
  • To insult with ficos, or contemptuous motions of the fingers. See fig, n., 7, and fico.
  • To put into the head of, as something worthless or useless.
  • To dress or deck: as, to fig one out.
  • To trick or hocus, as a horse, so as to make the animal appear lively or spirited, as by putting a piece of ginger into the anus.
  • A common abbreviation of figure.
  • noun Dress; equipment: used chiefly in the phrase in full fig, in full or official dress.
  • noun Hence Condition; state of preparation or readiness: as, the horse is in good fig for the race.
  • noun An abbreviation of figurative or of figuratively.
  • noun In soap-making, same as figging.
  • To move suddenly or quickly; rove about.

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

  • transitive verb obsolete To insult with a fico, or contemptuous motion. See fico.
  • transitive verb obsolete To put into the head of, as something useless o� contemptible.
  • noun (Bot.) A small fruit tree (Ficus Carica) with large leaves, known from the remotest antiquity. It was probably native from Syria westward to the Canary Islands.
  • noun The fruit of a fig tree, which is of round or oblong shape, and of various colors.
  • noun U.S. A small piece of tobacco.
  • noun The value of a fig, practically nothing; a fico; -- used in scorn or contempt.
  • noun See Conchineal fig.
  • noun a preparation of fine oatmeal for feeding caged birds.
  • noun one of a class of rural deities or monsters supposed to live on figs.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a small fly said to be injurious to figs.
  • noun the leaf tree; hence, in allusion to the first clothing of Adam and Eve (Genesis iii.7), a covering for a thing that ought to be concealed; esp., an inadequate covering; a symbol for affected modesty.
  • noun (Bot.) the name of several plants of the genus Mesembryanthemum, some of which are prized for the brilliancy and beauty of their flowers.
  • noun (Bot.) any tree of the genus Ficus, but especially F. Carica which produces the fig of commerce.
  • noun colloq. Figure; dress; array.

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

  • noun A fruit-bearing tree or shrub of the genus Ficus that is native mainly to the tropics.
  • noun The fruit of the fig tree, pear-shaped and containing many small seeds.
  • noun Abbreviation of figure (diagram or illustration).
  • verb intransitive To move suddenly or quickly; rove about.

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

  • noun fleshy sweet pear-shaped yellowish or purple multiple fruit eaten fresh or preserved or dried
  • noun a diagram or picture illustrating textual material
  • noun Mediterranean tree widely cultivated for its edible fruit
  • noun a Libyan terrorist group organized in 1995 and aligned with al-Qaeda; seeks to radicalize the Libyan government; attempted to assassinate Qaddafi

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Old French figue, from Old Provençal figa, from Vulgar Latin *fīca, from Latin fīcus.]

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

[Perhaps from fig, to trot out a horse in lively condition, dress up, variant of feague, to make a horse lively, probably from Dutch vegen, to brush, from Middle Dutch vēghen.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English fige, fygge (also fyke, from Old English fīc, see fike), from Anglo-Norman figue, from Old Provençal figa, from Vulgar Latin fīca ("fig"), from Latin fīcus ("fig tree"), from a pre-Indo European language, perhaps Phoenician (compare Classical Hebrew פַּגָּה (paggâ, "early fallen fig"), Classical Syriac ܦܓܐ (paggāʾ), dialectal Arabic - (faġġ), - (fiġġ)).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Variation of fike.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "It's only fitting, then, that the fig is extraordinary in botanical terms, too. The 'fruit' is actually an inverted flower with a collection of unopened blooms lining the inner wall of the delicate sack. Some fig varieties are self-pollinating, while others rely on fig wasps to help those tiny flowers produce hundreds of seeds. This juicy mass of seeds is what we recognize as the fruit's flesh. -- "Perfection is a Fresh Fig," Julie O'Hara, NPR

    September 11, 2008

  • For the erotic symbolism of the fig, see D. H. Lawrence's poem here and Alan Bates's marvelous interpretation of it in the Ken Russell movie Women in Love here.

    September 11, 2008

  • How sad that there are people walking around who don't know about FIGS, for heaven's sake...

    September 17, 2009

  • And happy are those who have no knowledge of the pollination biology of those figs we eat raw and use in our cooking, or of the host-parasite connection between the fig wasps and nematodes that live (and die!) inside the figs... all those creepy crawlies living inside such a luscious fruit... if ever there were a case to be made for food irradiation, this might be it!

    "One form of nematode is entirely dependent upon fig wasps, which are the sole source of fig fertilization. They prey upon the wasps, riding them from the ripe fig of the wasp's birth to the fig flower of its death, where they kill the wasp, and their offspring await the birth of the next generation of wasps as the fig ripens." (from Wikipedia entry for Nematode)

    September 17, 2009

  • I don't care WTF is living in them. Fresh figs are teh alsome.

    They're also said to be an aphrodisiac, so maybe there's something to dead nematodes... *ponders*

    September 17, 2009

  • Despite knowing way too much about the wasps and nematodes, I'm a great fan of figs, whether fresh off the tree, dehydrated, or baked into cookies or pies. My neighbor and I recently finished eating a whole tree full of these luscious fruits...

    September 17, 2009

  • Ooh! Green ones?

    September 17, 2009

  • Yeppers c_b, green ones, with the most alluring hint of pink inside... more often than not we just stood at the tree eating them on the spot, until quite farctate, we ambled off to our respective dwellings to digest before our next fig foray.

    September 17, 2009

  • *sigh*

    September 18, 2009

  • Weirdnet!

    September 18, 2009

  • "Whoa! Could you not use such harsh vegetables?"

    September 18, 2009

  • My sister-in-law in Los Alamos makes fig ice cream. It's not as good as you might hope...

    September 18, 2009

  • I have a medieval recipe for "fig cream," which IS as good as you might hope. It uses dried figs though.

    September 18, 2009

  • Faith

    "swearing by her fig"

    April 23, 2011