Definitions

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

  • noun Any of several shrubs or small trees of the genus Prunus of the rose family, especially the cultivated species P. domestica and P. salicina, bearing smooth-skinned, fleshy, edible fruit with a single stone.
  • noun The fruit of any of these trees.
  • noun Any of several trees bearing plumlike fruit.
  • noun The fruit of such a tree.
  • noun A raisin, when added to a pudding or cake.
  • noun A sugarplum.
  • noun A dark purple to deep reddish purple.
  • noun An especially desirable position, assignment, or reward.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A fruit of any of the trees called plums (see defs. 2 and 3); specifically, the fruit of a tree of the genus Prunus, distinguished from the peach and apricot by its smooth surface, smaller size, and unwrinkled stone, and from the cherry by the bloom on its surface and commonly larger size.
  • noun One of several small trees of the genus Prunus, forming the section Prunus proper.
  • noun One of numerous trees of other genera bearing plum-like fruit. See phrases below.
  • noun A grape dried in the sun; a raisin.
  • noun A good thing; the best or choicest part; a sugar-plum: in allusion to the use of plums or raisins in cakes, plum-pudding, etc.
  • noun The sum of £100,000 sterling; hence, any handsome sum or fortune generally; sometimes, also, a person possessing such a sum.
  • noun A recently introduced Japanese plum with red flesh. (U. S.)
  • noun Prunus Japonica and other true plums of Japan. See def. 2, and blood-plum .
  • noun In Sierra Leone, either of two species of Chrysobalanus, C. ellipticv.s and C.luteus
  • noun In eastern North America, the wild yellow or red plum, or Canada plum, P. Americana. It has a well-colored fruit with pleasant pulp, but tough acerb skin. It is common along streams, etc., and sometimes planted
  • noun In western North America, P subcordata, whose red fruit, which is large and edible, is often gathered.
  • noun In South Africa, Pappea Capensis.
  • noun In New South Wales, a tree, Sideroxylon australis, with drupaceous fruit, sometimes very tall, having a hard, prettily marked wood, available for cabinet purposes. See also Podotarpus. (See also gingerbread-plum, hog-plum, horse-plum, maiden-plum, mountain-plum, olive-plum.)
  • A simplified and former spelling of plumb.
  • An obsolete spelling of plumb.
  • noun In southern New South Wales, a handsome timber-tree, Eucryphia Moorei, having a clear, moderately hard wood of a light brown color. It is often called acacia, or acacia-plum, since, when not in flower, it resembles some of the larger species of that tree.
  • noun The caper-tree, Capparis nobilis.
  • noun See bullace- plum.
  • noun A low species, Prunus injucunda, with a very bitter fruit, found in Georgia and Alabama.
  • noun See Canada plum.
  • noun The Port Arthur plum (which see, under plum).

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

  • noun (Bot.) The edible drupaceous fruit of the Prunus domestica, and of several other species of Prunus; also, the tree itself, usually called plum tree.
  • noun A grape dried in the sun; a raisin.
  • noun A handsome fortune or property; formerly, in cant language, the sum of £100,000 sterling; also, the person possessing it.
  • noun Something likened to a plum in desirableness; a good or choice thing of its kind, as among appointments, positions, parts of a book, etc.
  • noun A color resembling that of a plum; a slightly grayish deep purple, varying somewhat in its red or blue tint.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the European bullfinch.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a weevil, or curculio (Coccotorus scutellaris), which destroys plums. It makes round holes in the pulp, for the reception of its eggs. The larva bores into the stone and eats the kernel.
  • noun (Zoöl.) an American weevil which is very destructive to plums, nectarines, cherries, and many other stone fruits. It lays its eggs in crescent-shaped incisions made with its jaws. The larva lives upon the pulp around the stone. Called also turk, and plum curculio. See Illust. under Curculio.

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

  • noun The edible, fleshy stone fruit of Prunus domestica, often of a dark red or purple colour.
  • noun The stone-fruit tree which bears this fruit, Prunus domestica.
  • noun A dark bluish-red color/colour, the colour of some plums.
  • noun A desirable thing.
  • noun A raisin, when used in a pudding or cake.
  • noun pejorative A fool, idiot
  • noun slang, usually in plural A testicle.
  • noun The edible, fleshy stone of Prunus mume, an Asian fruit more closely related to the apricot than the plum, usually consumed pickled, dried, or as a juice or wine; ume.

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Old English plūme; akin to Old High German phrūma, pflūmo, Greek proumnon, and Latin prūnum, all ultimately from a common unknown source .]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English plūme, from Proto-Germanic *prūmōn. Cognate with German Pflaume, Dutch pruim. Compare prune

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Phonetically based spelling of plumb

Support

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Examples

  • The root of that roundish fleshy drupe we call a plum is the Latin prunum.

    The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004

  • The root of that roundish fleshy drupe we call a plum is the Latin prunum.

    The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004

  • He also made the yoga treatment room which they called the plum shed.

    TravelPod.com TravelStream™ — Recent Entries at TravelPod.com 2010

  • I've had it with a sauce that tastes like bbq sauce or something, which they call plum sauce here but looks nothing like the one you had.

    BC Bloggers 2009

  • I've had it with a sauce that tastes like bbq sauce or something, which they call plum sauce here but looks nothing like the one you had.

    BC Bloggers 2009

  • References: la poubelle (f) = garbage can; plum (just in case, and for the French readers on this list, "plum" is English and the informal of "plumb" -- nothing to do with the juicy fruit) = completely; la clé (f) = key; le clavier (m) = keyboard

    French Word-A-Day: 2006

  • References: la poubelle (f) = garbage can; plum (just in case, and for the French readers on this list, "plum" is English and the informal of "plumb" -- nothing to do with the juicy fruit) = completely; la clé (f) = key; le clavier (m) = keyboard

    juillettiste - French Word-A-Day 2006

  • References: la poubelle (f) = garbage can; plum (just in case, and for the French readers on this list, "plum" is English and the informal of "plumb" -- nothing to do with the juicy fruit) = completely; la clé (f) = key; le clavier (m) = keyboard

    French Word-A-Day: 2006

  • References: la poubelle (f) = garbage can; plum (just in case, and for the French readers on this list, "plum" is English and the informal of "plumb" -- nothing to do with the juicy fruit) = completely; la clé (f) = key; le clavier (m) = keyboard

    French Word-A-Day: 2006

  • References: la poubelle (f) = garbage can; plum (just in case, and for the French readers on this list, "plum" is English and the informal of "plumb" -- nothing to do with the juicy fruit) = completely; la clé (f) = key; le clavier (m) = keyboard

    juillettiste - French Word-A-Day 2006

Comments

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  • The Word Plum

    by Helen Chasin

    The word plum is delicious

    pout and push, luxury of

    self-love, and savoring murmur

    full in the mouth and falling

    like fruit

    taut skin

    pierced, bitten, provoked into

    juice, and tart flesh

    question

    and reply, lip and tongue

    of pleasure.

    January 22, 2007

  • This Is Just To Say

    -William Carlos Williams

    I have eaten

    the plums

    that were in

    the icebox

    and which

    you were probably

    saving

    for breakfast

    Forgive me

    they were delicious

    so sweet

    and so cold

    January 22, 2007

  • Am I so dear?

    Do I run rare?

    And you've changed some:

    peach, plum, pear.

    -Joanna Newsom

    January 22, 2007

  • my grandad said he was always plum tired

    May 1, 2008

  • Many thanks to both, lyric! (See plum tired)

    May 1, 2008

  • My family always said "plum tuckered out". :)

    May 1, 2008