papaya
Americannoun
-
papayas
plural
-
the large, yellow, melonlike fruit of a tropical American shrub or small tree, Carica papaya, eaten raw or cooked.
-
the tree itself.
noun
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a Caribbean evergreen tree, Carica papaya, with a crown of large dissected leaves and large green hanging fruit: family Caricaceae
-
the fruit of this tree, having a yellow or reddish orange sweet edible pulp and small black seeds
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of papaya
1760–70; < Spanish < Carib (Hispaniola)
Explanation
A papaya is a sweet tropical fruit with small, black seeds at the center. A papaya and banana smoothie makes a delicious and healthy breakfast. Most people eat papayas raw when the fruit is soft and ripe, although some find the smell of a perfectly ripe papaya to be terrible. Many Southeast Asian and South American cuisines include raw and cooked papaya, as well as green papaya and even the leaves of the papaya tree. Papayas are also called pawpaws, which gets a bit confusing since there's a totally different North American fruit also called a pawpaw.
Vocabulary lists containing papaya
Orange
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South America - Middle School
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South America - Introductory
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Here I am, in my house, surrounded by a yard filled with passion fruit, papaya, cucumbers, avocados, chard and yes, uchche.
From Salon ● May 9, 2026
U.S. and Cook Islands government news releases showed him in a suit picking at pieces of pineapple and papaya as he sat opposite a group of diplomats in Hawaiian-style shirts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 27, 2025
His cooks minced the meat with papaya, saffron and spices and made it so fine and silky that it needed no chewing.
From BBC ● Dec. 19, 2025
Carrots and papaya plants have already pushed up through a rectangle of dark soil, thanks to a technique based on organic fertilisers made from a mixture of compost and chicken manure.
From Barron's ● Nov. 26, 2025
Brother Vu later found a baby papaya the size of a fist clinging to the trunk.
From "Inside Out and Back Again" by Thanhha Lai
During Vodou ceremonies, lwa are offered treats ranging from papayas and coffee to popcorn, lollipops and cheese puffs.
From Seattle Times ● May 9, 2024
If small-scale farmers grow fruit trees amid their crops, for example, they can eat those bananas or papayas themselves while selling the rest of the harvest.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 4, 2024
This is because papayas can produce either male flowers, female flowers or hermaphrodite flowers that have characteristics of both.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 14, 2024
Some mornings, his grandfather would take Roy back across the dirt road into the jungle to pick papayas, lemons and coconuts.
From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2023
The fruit stand on the corner is overflowing with avocados and papayas, most of them sliced straight through the middle to show their freshness.
From "Watch Us Rise" by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
