calabash

[ kal-uh-bash ]

noun

any of various gourds, especially the bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria.
a tropical American tree, Crescentia cujete, of the bignonia family, bearing large, gourdlike fruit.

any of several other plants having gourdlike fruit.
the fruit of any of these plants.
the dried, hollowed-out shell of any of these fruits, used as a container or utensil.
a bottle, kettle, ladle, etc., made from such a shell.
a tobacco pipe with a large bowl made from a calabash and usually having a curved stem.
a gourd used as a rattle, drum, etc.

Origin of calabash

1590–1600; <Middle French calabasse<Spanish calabaza<Catalan carabaça, perhaps <Arabic qarʿah yābisah gourd (that is) dry

Words Nearby calabash

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use calabash in a sentence

The woman who was the spokesperson held out a calabash, a hollowed out gourd traditionally used to hold the cutters' instruments.
How the Gambia is Fighting FGC | Julia Lalla-Maharajh | February 5, 2011 | THE DAILY BEAST
The timing of calabash, as everyone here seems to acknowledge, throws that debate into sharp relief.
Jamaica's Big Book Party | Olivia Cole | June 3, 2010 | THE DAILY BEAST
It's in this spirit that calabash surely puts the festival back into the term literary festival.
Jamaica's Big Book Party | Olivia Cole | June 3, 2010 | THE DAILY BEAST
I handed him the calabash, and the liquor pleasing his palate, he drank it all off.
The Arabian Nights | Unknown
Of this a great calabash was brought in, and poured out into black bowls made of soft and porous clay.
A Frontier Mystery | Bertram Mitford

The baobal is very distinct from the calabash-tree of America, with which it has been confounded by Father Labat.
The Book of Curiosities | I. Platts
A couple of spades, a trowel and a calabash were their only tools, but our adventurer was a knowing man, and "knowledge is power."
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, No. 87, March, 1875 | Various
It is now no longer the head of the player that furnishes the resonance, but the substituted calabash.
Elements of Folk Psychology | Wilhelm Wundt

British Dictionary definitions for calabash

calabash

/ (ˈkæləˌbæʃ) /

noun

Also called: calabash tree a tropical American evergreen tree, Crescentia cujete, that produces large round gourds: family Bignoniaceae
another name for the bottle gourd

the gourd of either of these plants
the dried hollow shell of a gourd used as the bowl of a tobacco pipe, a bottle, rattle, etc
calabash nutmeg a tropical African shrub, Monodora myristica, whose oily aromatic seeds can be used as nutmegs: family Annonaceae

Origin of calabash

C17: from obsolete French calabasse, from Spanish calabaza, perhaps from Arabic qar`ah yābisah dry gourd, from qar`ah gourd + yābisah dry

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

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