banana

/bəˈnænə/

/bəˈnɑnə/

Other forms: bananas

A banana is a curved, yellow fruit with a thick skin and soft sweet flesh. If you eat a banana every day for breakfast, your roommate might nickname you "the monkey."

A banana is a tropical fruit that's quite popular all over the world. It grows in bunches on a banana tree. To "go bananas" is a slangy way of saying "go crazy" or act ridiculous, and if someone refers to the "top banana," they mean the most important person in a particular group. The origin of banana isn't certain, but it's thought that it was borrowed by the Spanish or Portuguese from an African word, probably the Wolof word banana.

Definitions of banana

1. noun

   any of several tropical and subtropical treelike herbs of the genus Musa having a terminal crown of large entire leaves and usually bearing hanging clusters of elongated fruits
   synonyms: banana tree

   types:

   Musa acuminata, dwarf banana

   low-growing Asian banana tree cultivated especially in the West Indies for its clusters of edible yellow fruit

   Japanese banana, Musa basjoo

   Asiatic banana plant cultivated especially as a foliage plant in Japan

   Musa paradisiaca, plantain, plantain tree

   a banana tree bearing hanging clusters of edible angular greenish starchy fruits; tropics and subtropics

   Musa paradisiaca sapientum, edible banana

   widely cultivated species of banana trees bearing compact hanging clusters of commercially important edible yellow fruit

   Manila hemp, Musa textilis, abaca

   Philippine banana tree having leafstalks that yield Manila hemp used for rope and paper etc

   type of:

   herb, herbaceous plant

   a plant lacking a permanent woody stem; many are flowering garden plants or potherbs; some having medicinal properties; some are pests
2. noun

   elongated crescent-shaped yellow fruit with soft sweet flesh
   type of:

   edible fruit

   edible reproductive body of a seed plant especially one having sweet flesh