Word.ws English Dictionary

ginkgo

/ˈɡɪŋ.kəʊ/

ginkgo noun: any trees native to China with small, fan-shaped leaves and edible seeds.

ginkgo: any trees native to China with small, fan-shaped leaves and edible seeds
Image: Fernando Losada Rodríguez, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

ginkgo (plural ginkgos or ginkgoes)

  1. Any trees native to China with small, fan-shaped leaves and edible seeds.
    • Like cycads — their gymnosperm relatives — and ferns, the ginkgo produces motile sperm. […] In fact, the tree was originally thought to be extinct in the wild until two populations were located in China. Such native ginkgos remain rare, with a preference for rich, streamside habitats.2015 October 29, Dave Taft, “The Female Ginkgo Tree’s Acrid Smell of Success”, in The New York Times
  2. The seed of a ginkgo tree.
    • I swear the gingko's working in reverse2001, J. G. Thirlwell, “Heuldoch 7B”, in Flow, performed by Foetus

ginkgo meaning in Thai and Vietnamese

ginkgo in Thai

tree
แปะก๊วย bpɛ̀-gúai
seed
แปะก๊วย bpɛ̀-gúai

ginkgo in Vietnamese

tree
bạch quả
seed
bạch quả

Synonyms of ginkgo

Forms of ginkgo

pluralginkgos
pluralginkgoes
alternative formgingko

Origin of ginkgo

From Japanese 銀杏 (ginkyō), from Chinese 銀杏／银杏 (yínxìng, “silver apricot”). Ginkgo is the name that is printed in Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum Fasciculi V … (1712) authored by Engelbert Kaempfer, the first Westerner to see the species. In his way of transcription ginkyo would have been Ginkjo or Ginkio but was printed as Ginkgo. This was read by Carl Linnaeus, and the misspelling stuck.

Words formed from ginkgo

Phrases with ginkgo

Words that rhyme with ginkgo

Questions about ginkgo

What does ginkgo mean?
Ginkgo means any trees native to China with small, fan-shaped leaves and edible seeds.
What is ginkgo in Thai?
Ginkgo in Thai is แปะก๊วย (bpɛ̀-gúai). See Ginkgo meaning in Thai.
What part of speech is ginkgo?
Ginkgo is a noun.
How do you pronounce ginkgo?
Ginkgo is pronounced /ˈɡɪŋ.kəʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of ginkgo?
The plural of ginkgo is ginkgos.

Words near ginkgo in the dictionary

  1. Gini ratio
  2. Gini ratios
  3. giniite
  4. gink
  5. ginkgetin
  6. ginkgo
  7. ginkgo nut
  8. ginkgo nuts
  9. ginkgoaceous
  10. ginkgoalean
  11. ginkgoaleans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ginkgo (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ginkgo.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-ginkgo.wav.

Cite this entry: “ginkgo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ginkgo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.