# coconut

Pronunciation: say "KOH-kuh-nut" US /ˈkoʊ.kəˌnʌt/, UK /ˈkəʊ.kə.nʌt/, AUS /ˈkəʉ.kə.nɐt/

## Noun

1. The hard-shelled seed of the coconut palm's fruit, with firm white flesh lining the shell and a central cavity filled with watery liquid.
   - Simple: A big seed with a hard brown shell, white flesh inside, and liquid in the middle.
   - _He drained the coconut through a hole in the shell, then split it open to scrape out the flesh._
   - _Bakers crack open dozens of coconuts a week for the fresh flesh inside._
2. The fruit of the coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, with a fibrous husk surrounding a single large seed; despite the name, not a true nut.
   - Simple: The large fruit of a tall palm tree, with a thick outer layer around one big seed.
   - _Whole coconuts, husk and all, can float across the ocean for weeks before washing ashore._
   - _A freshly harvested coconut still wears its smooth green husk._
3. The edible white flesh of the coconut fruit.
   - Simple: The white part inside a coconut that people eat, often dried or grated for cooking.
   - _She toasted the shredded coconut before folding it into the batter._
   - _Fresh coconut tastes richer than the dried, sweetened kind sold in bags._
4. The tall tropical palm, Cocos nucifera, that bears coconuts, common along coastlines throughout the tropics.
   - Simple: The tall palm tree that coconuts grow on.
   - _Rows of coconuts line the road into the village, their fronds rattling in the wind._
   - _The old coconut behind the house finally toppled in the hurricane._
5. A person's head, in jocular slang, especially in talk of bumps and blows or appeals to think. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A funny, informal word for a person's head.
   - _The foul ball nearly clipped the umpire on the coconut._
   - _He's got nothing in that coconut but baseball stats and song lyrics._
6. A woman's breast; coarse, jocular slang, almost always used in the plural. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A rude slang word for a woman's breast.
   - _He earned a slap for staring at her coconuts instead of her face._
   - _The corset squeezed one coconut flat while leaving the other untouched._
7. A Hispanic or other dark-skinned person regarded as having overly assimilated to white culture; a derogatory label. *(US)*
   - Simple: An insulting word for a Hispanic or other dark-skinned person who acts too much like white people.
   - _Activists accused the Latino councilman of being a coconut who had sold out his own neighborhood._
   - _She grew up being called a coconut at school and a gringa by her grandmother._
8. An ethnic slur for a Black person regarded as having assimilated too far into white culture and so as having betrayed their own race. *(Australia, Kenya, South Africa)*
   - Simple: An offensive word for a Black person seen as acting too white or as betraying other Black people.
9. A Pacific Islander, used as a derogatory ethnic label. *(New Zealand)*
   - Simple: An insulting word for a person from the Pacific islands.
   - _The commentator lost his job after referring to the visiting Samoan team as coconuts._
   - _A drunk outside the bar called him a coconut as he walked past with his Fijian teammates._
10. A Malay person who cannot speak Malay; a derogatory label implying loss of one's heritage. *(Singapore)*
   - Simple: An insulting word for a Malay person who cannot speak the Malay language.
   - _His grandmother in Penang muttered that the city had turned her Malay grandson into a coconut._
   - _Cousins teased her as a coconut whenever she stumbled through basic Malay greetings._
11. An Indian person who cannot speak Tamil; a derogatory label, often used self-deprecatingly within the community. *(Malaysia)*
   - Simple: An insulting word for an Indian person who cannot speak the Tamil language.
   - _At family weddings she introduced herself, half joking, as the resident coconut who needed everything translated from Tamil._
   - _His Tamil-speaking cousins ribbed him as a coconut every time he visited._

## Origin

Formed from "coco" and "nut". When used of assimilated Hispanic or black people, it comes from the fruit's exotic origins and the slur that they are "brown on the outside, white on the inside"; when used of Polynesians, it comes from how common coconut palms are in the area.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/coconut (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).