kiwi

/ˈkiwi/

/ˈkiwi/

Other forms: kiwis

A kiwi is a sweet fruit that's originally from China but today is most often grown in New Zealand. See that little green fruit with tiny edible seeds in your fruit salad? It's kiwi!

New Zealanders use the word kiwi for a chicken-sized, flightless bird, or sometimes as a nickname for a person from New Zealand. The small, fuzzy-skinned fruit that North Americans call kiwi is known as either kiwifruit or Chinese gooseberry in New Zealand. The word kiwi first referred to the bird, and it comes from Maori.

Definitions of kiwi

1. noun

   fuzzy brown egg-shaped fruit with slightly tart green flesh
   synonyms: Chinese gooseberry, kiwi fruit

   type of:

   edible fruit

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

   climbing vine native to China; cultivated in New Zealand for its fuzzy edible fruit with green meat
   synonyms: Actinidia chinensis, Actinidia deliciosa, Chinese gooseberry, kiwi vine

   type of:

   vine

   a plant with a weak stem that derives support from climbing, twining, or creeping along a surface
3. noun

   nocturnal flightless bird of New Zealand having a long neck and stout legs; only surviving representative of the order Apterygiformes
   synonyms: apteryx

   type of:

   flightless bird, ratite, ratite bird

   any of a group of flightless bird species with flat, unkeeled breastbones, such as ostriches, cassowaries, emus, and kiwis