greengage
Americannoun
noun
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a cultivated variety of plum tree, Prunus domestica italica, with edible green plumlike fruits
-
the fruit of this tree
Etymology
Origin of greengage
1715–25; green + Gage, after Sir William Gage, 18th-century English botanist who introduced such varieties from France circa 1725
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.
He once wrote about asking for the local guava jelly in one of Trinidad's intellectual clubs, only to be told that they only had English greengage jam.
From Time Magazine Archive
But still he called for some greengage tart.
From Kept in the Dark by Anthony Trollope
By this path, too, grew the greengage trees.
From Leaves in the Wind by A. G. (Alfred George) Gardiner
My mother’s wedding ring is in that greengage plum next to the banana, and aunt Sophia Babcock’s is in that damson, a little below to the right.
From Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 by Various
You remember that we represented him by a football, while the earth was only a greengage plum.
From The Children's Book of Stars by G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
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.
