# pineapple

Pronunciation: say "PYN-ap-uhl" /ˈpaɪnəpəl/

## Noun

1. A large oval tropical fruit with a tough, spiky, segmented skin, a crown of stiff leaves, and sweet, juicy yellow flesh around a fibrous core; also this flesh eaten fresh, canned, or cooked.
   - Simple: A large tropical fruit with rough spiky skin and sweet, juicy yellow inside.
   - _The recipe calls for diced pineapple and a splash of lime juice._
   - _She picked out a ripe pineapple by sniffing its base._
2. Ananas comosus, a tropical plant native to South America whose thick stem is ringed by thirty or more long, pointed, spiny leaves.
   - Simple: A tropical plant with long, sharp, pointed leaves that grow around a thick stem.
   - _Each pineapple plant produces just a single fruit at a time._
   - _Farmers propagate pineapple from the leafy crown of a harvested fruit._
3. A hand grenade, so called from its resemblance to the spiky, segmented fruit. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A small bomb you throw by hand, with a bumpy shell like the fruit.
   - _He lobbed a pineapple into the bunker and ducked for cover._
   - _The old soldier called his hand grenade a pineapple._
4. A hairstyle in which the hair is gathered into a high ponytail on top of the head, imitating the leafy crown of the fruit.
   - Simple: A hairstyle with the hair pulled up into a ponytail on top of the head.
   - _Many curly-haired people sleep with their hair in a pineapple to protect their coils._
   - _She gathered her hair into a high pineapple and pinned the front back._
5. A pale yellow color resembling the flesh of a pineapple; also called pineapple yellow.
   - Simple: A soft, light yellow, like the color of pineapple flesh.
   - _The designer chose pineapple for the kitchen cabinets, warm and sunny._
   - _Walls washed in pineapple gave the small room a cheerful glow._
6. An Australian fifty-dollar note, so named because the note is yellow like the fruit. *(slang)*
   - Simple: An Australian fifty-dollar bill, named for its yellow color.
   - _The cab fare came to forty dollars, so he handed over a pineapple and waited for change._
   - _A couple of pineapples should cover dinner and drinks tonight._

## Interjection

7. A safeword: a prearranged word spoken to signal that all activity should stop at once.
   - Simple: A word people agree to say when they want an activity to stop right away.
   - _He gasped "pineapple!" and his partner immediately backed off._
   - _If anything felt wrong, all she had to do was say pineapple._

## Noun

8. The woody, scaly seed cone produced by a pine or fir tree. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: The hard, scaly cone that grows on a pine or fir tree.

## Other meanings

- (noun) A spiny, globe-shaped fish, Chilomycterus antillarum, a type of burrfish found in warm Atlantic waters.

## Origin

From Middle English pinappel ("pinecone", literally "pine-apple" or "pine-fruit"), from Proto-West Germanic *pīnapplu. It was later applied to the fruit of the pineapple plant because of its resemblance to a pinecone; compare Middle Dutch and Dutch pijnappel and Old High German pīnapful, all meaning "pinecone". By surface analysis, pine + apple.

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