Word.ws English Dictionary

wampee

/wɒmˈpiː/US/wɑmˈpiː/

wampee noun: a tree, Clausena lansium, native to Southern China and Indochina.

wampee: a tree, Clausena lansium, native to Southern China and Indochina
Image: WingkLEE, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

wampee (plural wampees)

  1. A tree, Clausena lansium, native to Southern China and Indochina.
  2. The fruit of this tree.

Noun (2)

wampee (plural wampees)

  1. Pontederia species, especially Pontederia cordata.
    • […] bulrushes, nut grass, corn grass, switch grass, and the wampees (Pontederia and Peltandra).1914, American Game Protective Association, Bulletin, page 20
    • Wampee is the Indian name for the tubers of certain swamp plants, […] […] (Pontederia cordata), which occurs in swamps from Nova Scotia to Minnesota and southward to Texas and […] the success they have obtained in hog raising by utilizing the native wampees suggests the possibility of developing a...1920, American Swineherd: Published Monthly in the Interests of Swine Raising, page 31
    Synonyms:
    pickerel weed, pickerel rush

Synonyms of wampee

Forms of wampee

pluralwampees
alternative formwampi
alternative formwhampee

Origin of wampee

Borrowed from Cantonese 黃皮 /黄皮 (wong⁴ pei⁴⁻², “wampee”, literally “yellow skin”).

Perhaps from a Native American language of the Carolinas such as Carolina Algonquian. If the name was originally applied to a white variety, it could be from the Algqonian root for "white": compare Massachusett wompi (“white”), whence English wamp and wampum.

Questions about wampee

What does wampee mean?
Wampee means a tree, Clausena lansium, native to Southern China and Indochina.
What part of speech is wampee?
Wampee is a noun.
How do you pronounce wampee?
Wampee is pronounced /wɒmˈpiː/ (UK).
What is the plural of wampee?
The plural of wampee is wampees.

Words near wampee in the dictionary

  1. wamp
  2. wampahoofus
  3. Wampano
  4. Wampanoag
  5. Wampanoags
  6. wampee
  7. wampees
  8. wampi
  9. wampis
  10. wampish
  11. wampished

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wampee (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-wampee.wav.

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