pawpaw
Syllables: paw·paw/ˈpɔːpɔː/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
cot caught merger/ˈpɑːpɑː/
pawpaw noun: any member of the genus Asimina of trees and shrubs native to eastern North America, especially common pawpaw (Asimina triloba).
Noun (1)
pawpaw (plural pawpaws)
- Any member of the genus Asimina of trees and shrubs native to eastern North America, especially common pawpaw (Asimina triloba).
- Throughout the years it's gone by a lot of names—frost banana, Indiana banana, fetid-bush, bandango, custard apple, prairie banana, poor man's banana—but most of the time it's just been called pawpaw. At first glance, both the fruit and the tree seem out of place in North America.[2015, Andrew Moore, Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit, Chelsea Green Publishing, →ISBN, page 1
- If there were such a thing as an anticapitalist fruit, the pawpaw, commonly foraged in the wild and inherently resistant to commodification, might qualify.2023 September 29, Molly Fitzpatrick, “He’s the Pawpaw King of Brooklyn. (What’s a Pawpaw?)”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- Synonyms:
- custard apple, prairie banana, hillbilly mango
- Papaya (Carica papaya), a widely cultivated tropical fruit tree.
- Synonyms:
- papaya
- Mountain pawpaw (Vasconcellea pubescens), a fruit tree native to South America.
- Xavier sliced the pawpaw in half, emptying the tiny black seeds over the veranda wall.2021, Leone Ross, This One Sky Day, Faber & Faber Limited, page 254
- Synonyms:
- mountain pawpaw, mountain papaya
- The fruit itself of such trees.
Noun (2)
pawpaw (plural pawpaws)
Noun (3) capitalized: Pawpaw
Pawpaw (plural Pawpaws)
- Alternative letter-case form of pawpaw (“grandfather”).
- She had enjoyed a happy childhood, but her one consistent ambition was to join her Pawpaw's law firm.2000, John R. Campbell, Dry Rot in the Ivory Tower: A Case for Fumigation, Ventilation, and Renewal of the Academic Sanctuary
- Finding Adam playing with his favorite toy truck on the floor beside her prostrate father. Adam had looked up and scampered to her. "Pawpaw's takin' a nap," he'd said. But Talia had known from her father's odd posture that he wasn't napping.2008, Sandra Marton, Sarah Mayberry, Emilie Rose, Hot City Nights, Harlequin, →ISBN
pawpaw meaning in Arabic
pawpaw in Arabic
- fruit
- ببو فاكهَة
Examples of pawpaw in a sentence
- If you’ve ever sampled an American custard apple, a prairie banana or a hillbilly mango, then you’ve eaten a pawpaw.
- At this annual Albany festival visitors can enjoy treats from the pawpaw fruit, including “prairie banana” ice cream.
- There's cherry bark tea, black strap molasses, sassafras, pawpaw, a pinch of sulfur, an' a little tetch of turpentine in it.
Synonyms of pawpaw
Forms of pawpaw
| plural | pawpaws |
|---|---|
| alternative form | papaw |
| alternative form | paw-paw |
| alternative form | pappaw |
| plural | Pawpaws |
Origin of pawpaw
Via Portuguese and Spanish papaya from Lokono papáia; compare also Kari'na kapaja. Doublet of papaya. Alternatively from Yuchi pahpah.
Related to papa, or pa(w) pa(w) (one’s father’s father).
Phrases with pawpaw
Questions about pawpaw
- What does pawpaw mean?
- Pawpaw means any member of the genus Asimina of trees and shrubs native to eastern North America, especially common pawpaw (Asimina triloba).
- What is pawpaw in Arabic?
- Pawpaw in Arabic is ببو فاكهَة. See Pawpaw meaning in Arabic.
- What part of speech is pawpaw?
- Pawpaw is a noun.
- How do you pronounce pawpaw?
- Pawpaw is pronounced /ˈpɔːpɔː/.
- What is the plural of pawpaw?
- The plural of pawpaw is pawpaws.
Words near pawpaw in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pawpaw (page history and authors); Pawpaw (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)-Flame, not lame-pawpaw.wav.
Cite this entry: “pawpaw.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pawpaw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.