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Plum   /pləm/   Listen
noun
Plum  n.  
1.
(Bot.) The edible drupaceous fruit of the Prunus domestica, and of several other species of Prunus; also, the tree itself, usually called plum tree. "The bullace, the damson, and the numerous varieties of plum, of our gardens, although growing into thornless trees, are believed to be varieties of the blackthorn, produced by long cultivation." Note: Two or three hundred varieties of plums derived from the Prunus domestica are described; among them the greengage, the Orleans, the purple gage, or Reine Claude Violette, and the German prune, are some of the best known. Note: Among the true plums are; Beach plum, the Prunus maritima, and its crimson or purple globular drupes, Bullace plum. See Bullace. Chickasaw plum, the American Prunus Chicasa, and its round red drupes. Orleans plum, a dark reddish purple plum of medium size, much grown in England for sale in the markets. Wild plum of America, Prunus Americana, with red or yellow fruit, the original of the Iowa plum and several other varieties. Among plants called plum, but of other genera than Prunus, are; Australian plum, Cargillia arborea and Cargillia australis, of the same family with the persimmon. Blood plum, the West African Haematostaphes Barteri. Cocoa plum, the Spanish nectarine. See under Nectarine. Date plum. See under Date. Gingerbread plum, the West African Parinarium macrophyllum. Gopher plum, the Ogeechee lime. Gray plum, Guinea plum. See under Guinea. Indian plum, several species of Flacourtia.
2.
A grape dried in the sun; a raisin.
3.
A handsome fortune or property; formerly, in cant language, the sum of £100,000 sterling; also, the person possessing it.
4.
Something likened to a plum in desirableness; a good or choice thing of its kind, as among appointments, positions, parts of a book, etc.; as, the mayor rewarded his cronies with cushy plums, requiring little work for handsome pay
5.
A color resembling that of a plum; a slightly grayish deep purple, varying somewhat in its red or blue tint.
Plum bird, Plum budder (Zool.), the European bullfinch.
Plum gouger (Zool.), a weevil, or curculio (Coccotorus scutellaris), which destroys plums. It makes round holes in the pulp, for the reception of its eggs. The larva bores into the stone and eats the kernel.
Plum weevil (Zool.), an American weevil which is very destructive to plums, nectarines, cherries, and many other stone fruits. It lays its eggs in crescent-shaped incisions made with its jaws. The larva lives upon the pulp around the stone. Called also turk, and plum curculio.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plum" Quotes from Famous Books



... thundered on its solemn round in an eternal twinkling twilight of dripping ferns and green mosses; while hard by the dwelling-house stood and offered small diamond panes and one dormer-window to the south. Upon its whitewashed face three fruit-trees grew—a black plum, a cherry, a winter pear; and before the farmhouse stretched a yard sloping to the river ford, where a line of massive stepping-stones for foot-passengers crossed the water. On either side of this space, walled up from the edge of the stream, little gardens of raspberry and ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... on trestles down the tent, and long benches beside 'em, and folks eating and drinking, and a counter cross the head of the room, and great tin dishes simmering a-top of it—trotters and sausages and tripe, bacon and beef and colliflowers, cabbage and onions, blood-puddings and plum-duff. It seemed like a chance to change my banknote, and see whether 'twere good and not elf-money that folks have found turn to leaves in their pocket. So up I walks, and bids 'em gie me a plate ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... too common names (anything but proper ones) are the eccentric. The colors are well represented; for, beside Oil and Paint for materials, there are Brown, Black, Blue, Green, White, Cherry, Gray, Hazel, Plum, Rose, and Vermilion. The animals come in for their share; for we find Alligator, Bald-Eagle, Beaver, Buck, Buffalo, Eagle, Eel, Elk, Fawn, East-Deer and West-Deer, Bird, Fox, (in Elk County,) Pigeon, Plover, Raccoon, Seal, Swan, Turbot, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... very well as a profession; but amateur art—French plum-box art—is worse than worthless. However, I am glad you can amuse yourself somehow; and I daresay, if you have to turn governess by-and-by, that sort of thing will be useful. You have the usual ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... been the first large plum that the Kinsolvings had drawn from the social pie. For a long time, the pie itself had been out of reach on a top shelf. But the purse and the pursuit had at last lowered it. Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins was the heliograph of the smart society parading corps. ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry


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