Drupe

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Drupe

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue Dec 06, 2022 7:54 pm

• drupe •


Pronunciation: drup • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: Fruit with a pit or stone, such as peaches, plums, olives, cherries, etc.

Notes: Here is a category of fruit we are all familiar with but few are acquainted with its name. It comes with two adjectives, drupaceous "having the characteristics of a drupe" and drupiferous "bearing drupes". For some reason the diminutive, drupel, refers to berries like blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries.

In Play: The fruit of the almond tree is a drupe, containing a stone with a hard outer hull within which lies a seed which, when fresh, tastes just like a maraschino cherry (personal experience). The name of the clingstone peach refers to a peach with a stone that is difficult to remove from the flesh.

Word History: Today's Good Word was taken from Modern Latin drupa "stone-fruit", from Classical Latin drupe "wrinkled olive", which Latin borrowed from Greek dryppa, a reduction of drypepes "tree-ripened", created by combining drys "tree, oak" + pepon "ripe". Greek metathesized PIE deru-/doru- "solid, wood, tree" to create drys, as did English for its tree, Albanian for its dru "wood, tree" and, probably, Irish trom "heavy". Pepon came from PIE pekw-/pokw- "to cook; digest; ripen", remnants of which we see in Sanskrit pacati "cooks, bakes" and pacyate "ripens", Russian peku "I bake", Serbian pekao "baked", Welsh pobi "baking", Breton pober "baker", and Cornish peber "baker". (Now let's thank Susan Maynard for spotting the interest in today's compelling Good Word and sharing it with us.)
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bbeeton
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Re: Drupe

Postby bbeeton » Tue Dec 06, 2022 10:39 pm

Looking through the history, it seems there is probably also some connection to druids and dryads,

Debbymoge
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Re: Drupe

Postby Debbymoge » Wed Dec 07, 2022 6:06 am

How did strawberries sneak in there when their seeds are outside?
Or do they just need to be hard?
If so, are there some soft-seeded fruits?

Perhaps it's just a bit late at night (or too early in the morning) for me to picture any such readily.
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David Myer
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Re: Drupe

Postby David Myer » Wed Dec 07, 2022 7:14 am

I think the suggestion is that those soft fruits mentioned are actually called drupels rather than drupes. The online dictionary I looked at suggests that drupels are fruit whose drupes are aggregated. So each bead of a single raspberry contains its own hard seed - the drupe is the individual bead. But it certainly is destined to confuse - especially those like me with bad memories.

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Re: Drupe

Postby Dr. Goodword » Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:16 pm

Looking through the history, it seems there is probably also some connection to druids and dryads.
Both these words go back to PIE deru- "tree" for various reasons.
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