crab apple


noun
  1. a small, sour, wild apple.

  2. any of various small, tart, cultivated varieties of apple, used for making jelly and preserves.

  1. any tree bearing such fruit.

Origin of crab apple

1
First recorded in 1705–15

Words Nearby crab apple

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use crab apple in a sentence

  • On a knoll the air is honeyed with wild crab-apple; along a slope the senses tingle with the scent of the green walnut.

  • Spiced crab-apple jelly is nice, too; you just add a bag of whole spices as it cooks.

    Living on a Little | Caroline French Benton
  • The glen is strewn with limestone rocks, and at its head stands a twisted crab-apple tree.

    Lives of the Fur Folk | M. D. Haviland
  • To the crab-apple pulp, add the sugar, and place over the fire to boil.

    Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 | Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
  • Ecks was executing a series of caricatures illustrating the involution of Hodgkins' face back into a crab-apple.

    The Incendiary | W. A. (William Augustine) Leahy

British Dictionary definitions for crab apple

crab apple

noun
  1. any of several rosaceous trees of the genus Malus that have white, pink, or red flowers and small sour apple-like fruits

  2. the fruit of any of these trees, used to make jam

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012