palmetto
Americannoun
noun
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any of several small chiefly tropical fan palms, esp any of the genus Sabal, of the southeastern US See also cabbage palmetto saw palmetto
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any of various other fan palms such as palms of the genera Serenoa, Thrinax, and Chamaerops
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of palmetto
1555–65; earlier palmito < Spanish, diminutive of palma palm 2; -etto by association with -ette
Explanation
A palmetto is a type of palm tree. You're most likely to see palmettos in South America or the southern US states, instead of say Nebraska. A palmetto (the "cabbage palmetto, to be specific) is Florida's official state tree, and South Carolina is known as "the palmetto state." Palmettos are fan palms, with leaves in the shape of fans that are arranged in a rounded shape. The very middle of the palmetto plant is edible, and when it's harvested and sold as food, it's called "heart of palm." Palmetto comes from the Spanish palmito, "little palm tree."
Vocabulary lists containing palmetto
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:
“I usually tell patients the only thing saw palmetto does is hurt your wallet,” Nakada said.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 26, 2024
Herbal supplements such as saw palmetto are not currently recommended, although some men say they work for them.
From BBC ● Jan. 18, 2024
Nashville’s local palms, the dwarf palmetto and Sabal minor, might, at best, yield a fluffy lowercase m.
From Slate ● Sep. 5, 2023
In the middle of the 20th century, this flat peninsula was a swampy, mosquito-infested spit of mangrove and palmetto scrubland inhabited by a handful of cattle ranchers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2022
They hurried across the field, past the sharp edges of the palmetto palms, and deep into the darkness of the woods.
From "Copper Sun" by Sharon M. Draper
I could not be certain, however, as the three were well sheltered behind a clump of trees, and covered, also, by a thicket of dwarf palmettoes.
From Osceola the Seminole The Red Fawn of the Flower Land by Reid, Mayne
Above them swayed the shining green palmettoes Vocal and plaintive at the winds' caress; While, at the edge of sight, the fluent silver Of sea and bay framed the wide loneliness.
From Carolina Chansons Legends of the Low Country by Heyward, DuBose
Out of the region of magnolias, palmettoes and live-oaks you pass into the region of pines, and out of the region of pines into that of maples and elms.
From American Adventures A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' by Morgan, Wallace
The stream wound on, the banks grew higher, palmettoes began to appear; they all leaned forward a little in the golden air, they formed the most graceful groups of curiosity.
From East Angels by Woolson, Constance Fenimore
They set fire to the grass and palmettoes, but a sudden shift of the wind carried the fire in their direction.
From General Scott by Wright, Marcus Joseph
“Our ownly food was palmettos boiled with the meat and without salt, and the cores of palm trees” — hearts of palm, a future foodie TikTok rage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 20, 2025
On a humid afternoon in June 1954, my parents married in a whitewashed Methodist church in my mother’s hometown in rural south Georgia, rosette windows and palmettos framing the front doors.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 4, 2021
Her work included a study of palmettos near her home at 71 Rutledge Ave. and possibly field research on the Isle of Palms.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 6, 2021
The riverfront was lined with reeds and brambles; behind that was a dense hardwood forest; and farthest back, where Mary Brock and Pee Wee live, lay a cypress swamp populated by stands of palmettos.
From New York Times ● Mar. 22, 2012
Now, the whole family joined the dance, leaping, screaming, and racing past parked cars and the weird shadows cast by palmettos.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
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.
