Other forms: pineapples
A pineapple is a big tropical fruit with spiky skin and a crown of leaves. Fresh pineapple, a slice of pineapple, pineapple on pizza.
It contains an enzyme that digests protein, which is why it stings the mouth and why it will not set in jelly unless cooked first. The word meant pinecone in Middle English and was transferred to the fruit because they look alike.
1nounpineappleA large tropical fruit with spiky skin.
“She cut the spiky skin off the pineapple and sliced the sweet yellow fruit.”
pineapple is a fruit.
Middle English pinappel meant a pinecone. The name was moved to the fruit because it looks like one.
Proto-West Germanic
*pīnapplu
Middle English
pinappel — pinecone
English, today
pineapple
From Middle English pinappel (“pinecone”) literally “pine-apple/pine-fruit”, from Proto-West Germanic pīnapplu. Later applied to the fruit of the pineapple plant due to its resemblance to a pinecone. Compare the Middle Dutch - and Dutch pijnappel (“pinecone", formerly also "pineapple”), Afrikaans pynappel (“pineapple”), Middle Low German pinappel, Old High German pīnapful, Middle High German pīnaphel, and early Modern German pinapfel — all in the sense of “pine cone”. Compare also the post-Classical Latin pomum pini, the Old French pume de pin, the Middle French - and French pomme de pin and Spanish piña. by surface analysis, en + pine + apple. Sense "An Australian fifty dollar note": From the yellow colour of a $50 banknote in the first, second, and third series of rice Australian dollar notes. Compare with lobster for a $20 Australian banknote, and watermelon for a $100 Australian banknote.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA