papaya
Americannoun
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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.
Amaya Espinal, the winner of season 7 who was nicknamed "Amaya Papaya", expressed her distaste at the AI fruit re-creation of the show she starred in just last year.
From BBC • Mar. 28, 2026
McLaren called these the Papaya Rules, after the color of their car.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 7, 2025
Right by it was the hot dog shop Gray's Papaya where Joe and Kathleen's newly formed friendship began to flourish, even though Fox Books aided in the demise of her family bookstore.
From Salon • Dec. 25, 2023
Martin said that when he found the giant on the surface, Papaya decided to do something crazy: sleep.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 12, 2023
Papaya Tree It grew from a seed I flicked into the back garden.
From "Inside Out and Back Again" by Thanhha Lai
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.
