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• 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.

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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.

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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)

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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

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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.

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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

Flowers polygamous; ovary 2-celled, forming a samara, like that of Elm.

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 flattened, round-winged samara; ripe in the spring and dropping early from the trees.

From Trees of the Northern United States Their Study, Description and Determination by Apgar, A. C. (Austin Craig)

The fruit is a samara, or key, winged similarly to that of a sugar maple, but smaller.

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

Fruit a 1–2-celled samara or key-fruit, flattened, winged at the apex, 1–2-seeded.

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

“Renewed geopolitical risks pose a near-term headwind” for the Australian dollar against the greenback, CBA’s Samara Hammoud says in a research report.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026

The same year Chase voiced Lilo in “Lilo & Stitch,” she also played the iconic ghost girl Samara Morgan in the horror flick “The Ring.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 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

Australia's Samara Weaving reprises her starring role in the sequel, which sees her forced once again to run a gauntlet, this time against multiple families.

From Barron's ● Mar. 22, 2026

The famine relief work nearly cost my son Leo his life; he was at the time a young undergraduate and worked on his own account on famine relief in the Samara Province.

From Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy by Tolstoy, Sophie Andreevna