any of several trees of the genus Nyssa, having ovate leaves, clusters of minute flowers, and purple, berrylike fruit, especially N. aquatica, of swampy regions of the eastern, southern, and midwestern U.S.
the soft, light wood of these trees.
any of several cornaceous trees of the genus Nyssa , esp N. aquatica , a large tree of deep swamps and rivers of the southern US
the light strong wood of any of these trees
1720–30, perhaps < Creek *’topilwa literally, swamp tree (equivalent to íto tree + opílwa swamp)
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The treed “Woodland Garden” to the west, with black tupelo and swamp white oaks, gives way to a “Perennial Meadow,” whose asters, purple beebalms and orange butterfly weed were chosen for their chromatic effect.
From The Wall Street Journal • Sep. 24, 2025
There is a saying that five times as much tupelo honey is sold than is made.
From Salon • Jun. 3, 2023
Nurseries donated other plants, including 58 tupelo trees, each one representing a person lost in the attack.
From Washington Times • Oct. 16, 2017
It offers a chance to paddle Louisiana’s cypress and tupelo forests, meandering bayous, and the sprawling wetlands that sit on New Orleans’ doorstep and once laced the city itself.
From The Guardian • Aug. 28, 2015
Frightful in her church and Drum in his tupelo sat quietly through screaming gusts and dead calms.
From "Frightful's Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
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.
