Indian fig

American  

noun

1. a bushy or treelike cactus, Opuntia ficus-indica, of central Mexico, having large yellow flowers and juicy, red, edible fruit.

---

Etymology

Origin of Indian fig

First recorded in 1585–95

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Indian fig

And, always, winter’s fog and mist, one of Nepal’s seasonally distinct languages, shrouding the shrines in Pashupatinath, one of the world’s holiest Shiva temples, or cloaking a farmer by the valley’s sacred Indian fig trees.

From New York Times ● Mar. 5, 2015

The Mohammedans aver that the “forbidden fruit” was the banana or Indian fig, and cite in confirmation of this opinion that our first parents used fig leaves for their covering after their fall.

From Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 by Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham

One of these drinks is made from dates; the other from the Indian fig.

From The World and Its People: Book VII Views in Africa by Badlam, Anna B.

The Indian fig, for instance, is a most interesting tree.

From The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island by Wyss, Johann David

The vega was covered with beautiful vegetation, with rice and cotton, with groves of oranges, citrons, figs, and mulberries, and with gardens enclosed by hedges of reeds, of aloes, and the Indian fig.

From Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada by Irving, Washington