Jump To:

• samara
  samara

  noun

  an indehiscent, usually one-seeded, winged fruit, as of the elm or maple.
• Samara
  Samara

  noun

  a port in the SE Russian Federation in Europe, on the Volga.

samara

¹ American  

[sam-er-uh, suh-mair-uh] / ˈsæm ər ə, səˈmɛər ə /

noun

Botany.

1. an indehiscent, usually one-seeded, winged fruit, as of the elm or maple.

---

Samara ² American  

[suh-mahr-uh, suh-mah-ruh] / səˈmɑr ə, sʌˈmɑ rə /

noun

1. a port in the SE Russian Federation in Europe, on the Volga.

---

Samara ¹ British  

/ saˈmarə /

noun

1. Former name (1935–91): Kuibyshev.   Kuybyshev.  a port in SW Russia, on the River Volga: centre of an important industrial complex; oil refining. Pop: 1 140 000 (2005 est)

---

samara ² British  

/ ˈsæmərə, səˈmɑːrə /

noun

1. Also called: key fruit.  a dry indehiscent one-seeded fruit with a winglike extension to aid dispersal: occurs in the ash, maple, etc

---

samara Scientific  

/ săm′ər-ə /

1. An achene (a dry, one-seeded fruit) in which the pericarp is modified into a winglike structure adapted for airborne dispersal. The seeds of the ash, elm, and maple are contained in samaras.

---

Etymology

Origin of samara

1570–80; < New Latin; Latin samara, samera elm seed

Explanation

A samara is a tree fruit that has wings and usually just one seed. You may have seen samaras spinning through the air after falling from trees, which is why they are sometimes called helicopter seeds. People call samaras lots of different things, including keys, wingnuts, and whirlybirds. The name samara comes from the Latin for "elm seed," but some other trees that produce samaras are maple, ash, and sycamore trees. When a samara gets blown off a tree, it spins away through the air on its thin wings. This allows the seed to be dispersed far from its parent tree, where it has a better chance of growing into a new tree.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

samara Samara

Acorns and winged maple keys, whose scientific name is a samara, are also fruit.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 25, 2013

The fruit, ripening in October but remaining on the tree during the winter, is a one-seeded samara, spirally twisted, borne in crowded clusters.

From Forest Trees of Illinois How to Know Them by Fuller George D.

Acerineæ, in Sapindaceæ, 115 Fruit a 1-celled and 1-seeded samara or a drupe.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

Fruit a 1-celled and 1-seeded membranaceous samara, winged all around.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

They would run swiftly out upon the ends of the small branches, reach out for the maple keys, snip off the wings, and deftly slip the nut or samara into their cheek pockets.

From Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers by Burroughs, John

Older people who are upsizing are opting for features that they hope will help them age comfortably in their big homes, said Samara Goodman, an interior designer based in the Washington, D.C., area.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

In the latter, she played ghost girl Samara Morgan.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026

Daveigh Chase, the former child actor best known for voicing Lilo in Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” and portraying the haunting figure Samara in “The Ring,” has died at age 35.

From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2026

Samara is less vulnerable to artificial intelligence than more traditional enterprise-software companies, which often operate on seat-based models that can be replaced over time by AI tools.

From Barron's ● Jun. 4, 2026

At that time the extent of free land was considerable in Bessarabia, Volhynia, and the provinces of Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, Saratoff and Samara, where down to the year 1915 entire cantons were inhabited by Germans.

From England and Germany by Hughes, William Morris