peewah

Noun

peewah (plural peewahs)

1. (Trinidad-and-Tobago) A peach palm (Bactris gasipaes), a South American palm tree.
   • The Pewa or Peach palm (Guilielma speciosa) was introduced from Trinidad, and seedlings raised for distribution. The fruits when boiled in water with salt are appreciated as a food.1910, Department of Agriculture, Legislative Council, Trinidad and Tobago, [Council Paper], Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: Government Printer, →OCLC, page 16
   • This Guilielma [the peach palm or pejibaye (Guilielma gasipaes)] is prized in Trinidad, as well as elsewhere, for its edible fruits; by the natives I have heard it called piliwa and piwa.[1947 December 27, L[iberty] H[yde] Bailey, Indigenous Palms of Trinidad and Tobago (Gentes Herbarum: Occasional Papers on the Kinds of Plants), volume VII, fascicle IV, Ithaca, N.Y.: Bailey...

   Synonyms:

   pupunha

2. (Trinidad-and-Tobago) The edible fruit of this plant, which has an orange or red skin when ripe, orange pulp which turns floury when cooked, and a single large seed.
   • Nicolasa had boiled a couple dozen peewahs. They were of a floury consistency. I cracked open the nuts and chewed them slowly, squeezing out the juice against my palate.1994, Sylvia Moodie-Kablalsingh, The Cocoa Panyols of Trinidad: An Oral Record, London; New York, N.Y.: British Academic Press, →ISBN, page 42
   • I start to remember Julie mango, how it sweet, and chataigne and peewah that me mother would boil up in a big pot a' salt water, and how my father always had he little kitchen garden, growin' dasheen leaf and pigeon peas and yam and thing.1996, Nalo Hopkinson, “A Habit of Waste”, in Fireweed, Toronto, Ont.: Fireweed Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 40, column 2; republished in Victor J[ammona] Ramraj, editor, Concert of Voices: An Anthology...