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banana - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Four different types of bananas. The larger yellow bananas on the far right are commercially dominant Cavendish bananas.

Borrowed from Portuguese banana or Spanish banana, derived from a Niger-Congo language spoken in the Guinea region.[1] Specific derivation is unclear. Possible ancestor or cognate languages include Wolof banaana, Eastern Maninkakan banana, and Vai ꕒꘌꕯ (ɓaana) or ꕒꕌꕯ (ɓaana).[2][3][4][5] However, Ay Baati Wolof (Munro & Gaye, 1997) posits that Wolof banaana is itself derived from Portuguese banana.[6]

The racial slur derives from the notion that they are "Yellow (East-Asian) on the outside, but White (Westernized) on the inside."

banana (countable and uncountable, plural bananas)

  2. An elongated curved tropical fruit of a banana plant, which grows in bunches and has a creamy flesh and a smooth skin. [from 1597]

    • 2017, Sam Shepard, chapter 27, in Spy of the First Person, →ISBN, page 62:

      I'll need a few things. I'll need some mayonnaise and a silver tin of sardines, a banana.

    1. (Canada, US, UK, Ireland) In particular, the sweet, yellow fruit of the Cavendish banana cultivar, which may be eaten raw, as distinct from e.g. a plantain for cooking.
  3. The tropical tree-like plant which bears clusters of bananas, a plant of the genus Musa (but sometimes also including plants from Ensete), which has large, elongated leaves. [from 1697]
  4. (uncountable) A yellow color, like that of a banana's skin. [from 1923]

    banana:  

  5. (derogatory, ethnic slur) A person of East or Southeast Asian descent, considered to be overly assimilated and subservient to white authority. [from 1970]
    Synonym: Twinkie
  6. (slang) The penis.

    • 1986, Christopher Street, Cop Feels of Three Men's "Privates"‎[9], volume 10:

      The fact that the cop bought O'Brien a beer after feeling of his banana suggests that it must have been a promising one

    • 2012, Sarah Miynowski, Fishbowl‎[10], page 36:

      His you-know-what turned soft .. his eight o'clock class was the last thing on his mind five minutes ago, when his banana wasn't overripe.

    • 2014, Anthony Bunko, Lord Forgive Me‎[11], page 71:

      Most of the gang were trying their best to shag the girls. One boy was sitting in a tree playing with himself and another was asking a table of teenagers if they would like to see his banana.

    • 2017, Intimate Relationships in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture‎[12], page 234:

      He adds that after eating his banana (sucking his penis), he wants anal sex, but she asks him to lick her pussy. Then he tells her no because it is disgusting.

  7. (sports) A banana kick.
  8. (nuclear physics) A banana equivalent dose.
  9. (computer science, colloquial) A catamorphism (from the use of banana brackets in the notation).
  • (Asian assimilated into Western culture): jook-sing

fruit

plant

color

pejorative: person of Asian descent

banana (not comparable)

  1. Curved like a banana, especially of a ball in flight.

    • 2001, Rayne Barton, The Green Hills Golf Chronicles, →ISBN, page 155:

      Even the lowly banana ball, the bane of so many weekenders, sometimes can be exactly right, as in this case.

    • 2002, Andrew Collins, Guild of Honor, →ISBN, page 53:

      He played the fading, low-banana shot as planned, and the ball whistled left of the oak tree and between the pines.

    • 2006, Richard Witzig, The Global Art of Soccer, →ISBN, page 247:

      [...]Bernd Schneider closed the scoring in injury-time with a 23 meter free-kick banana shot into the upper-right corner.

  1. ^ “banana, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
  2. ^ “banana”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
  3. ^ “banana”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
  4. ^ “banana”, in Collins English Dictionary.
  5. ^ S.W. Koelle (1854) Outlines of a Grammar of the Vei Language: Together with a Vei-English Vocabulary‎[1], London Church Missionary House, page 144
  6. ^ Munro, Pamela, Gaye, Dieynaba (1997) Ay baati Wolof: A Wolof dictionary (UCLA Occasional Papers in Linguistics)‎[2], Los Angeles: Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, →OCLC, page 15
  • IPA(key): /baˈnana/ [baˈna.na]
  • Rhymes: -ana
  • Syllabification: ba‧na‧na

banana f (plural bananes)

  1. banana (fruit)
    Synonym: plátanu

banana f (plural bananes)

  1. banana (fruit)
    Synonym: plàtan

From English banana.

banana m (plural bananas)

  1. banana

banana

  1. third-person singular past historic of bananer (to make a mistake)
  • IPA(key): /baˈnana/ [baˈnã.nɐ]
  • Rhymes: -ana
  • Hyphenation: ba‧na‧na

banana f (plural bananas)

  1. banana (fruit)
    Synonym: plátano

    Os chimpancés utilizan bastóns para coller unha banana.

    Chimpanzees use sticks to pick up a banana.

banana

  1. definite accusative plural of bani
  2. inflection of banani:
    1. indefinite accusative
    2. indefinite dative singular
    3. indefinite genitive

From Wolof banaana.

  • IPA(key): /bˠəˈn̪ˠan̪ˠə/

banana m (genitive singular banana, nominative plural bananaí)

  1. banana
Mutated forms of banana
radical lenition eclipsis
banana bhanana mbanana

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Modern Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

  • IPA(key): /baˈna.na/
  • Rhymes: -ana
  • Hyphenation: ba‧nà‧na

banana f (plural banane)

  1. banana (fruit)

banana m (invariable)

  1. banana (color)

banana (invariable)

  1. banana (color)

banana

  1. Rōmaji transcription of バナナ

banana f (genitive bananae); first declension

  1. (New Latin) banana
    Synonyms: (Classical Latin, rare) ariēna, (Medieval Latin) mūsa

    • 1619, Americæ pars undecima: Seu descriptio admirandi itineris a Guilielmo Schouten Hollando peracti: […], Oppenheim: Typis Hieronymi Galleri, page 41:

      Illi amicabiliter ad navem noſtram appellentes, tantum Cocorum ac Bananarum nobis obtulerunt numerum, ut quilibet in navi nuces 50. duos Bananarum corbes eo die lucraretur.

      (please add an English translation of this quotation)

    • 1622, Antonio de Herrera [y Tordesillas], translated by C[aspar] Barlæus, Novus Orbis, Sive Descriptio Indiae Occidentalis, […], Amsterdam: Apud Michaelem Colinium Bibliopolam, ad insigne Libri Domestici, page 71:

      Tabaci, Cocorum, Bananarum, oryzæ, piſorum, fabarum, porcorum, gallinarum & piſcium nobis faciebant copiam.

      (please add an English translation of this quotation)

    • 1832, Voyage de la corvette l’Astrolabe : Exécuté pár ordre du roi, pendant les années 1826-1827-1828-1829, sous le commandement de M. J. Dumont d’Urville, […], volume IV, Paris: J. Tastu, […], page 686:

      Hi Æthiopes monstrabant ut tormenta nostra exploderemus in canoas istas, sed significabatur ipsis, hoc à natura batava alienum, nocere inculpatis, si vero nos læderent, arma nobis data defensioni, nihilominus advolant amicè, adferentes tantam abundantiam cocorum et bananarum, quantam desiderabamus, ut socio unicuique quinquaginta nuces distribuerentur et duo fasciculi bananarum.

      (please add an English translation of this quotation)

    • 1884, Francis William Newman, Rebilius Cruso: Robinson Crusoe, in Latin; a Book to Lighten Tedium to a Learner, London: Trübner & Co., […], page 56:

      Jam dactylos, bananas, cocos nuces, ananassas, uvas, ad libitum me habiturum spero: nimia me spes et nimia cupiditas festinavit. […] Modicum bananarum et dactylorum onus assumo: vescor quantum libet, bibo e rivulo, et, relictâ scaphâ, ascendo vallem.

      (please add an English translation of this quotation)

First-declension noun.

From German Banane, ultimately from Wolof banaana.

banana f

  1. banana
  • Starosta, Manfred (1999) “banana”, in Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (in German), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag
  • Lower Sorbian vocabulary. In: Haspelmath, M. & Tadmor, U. (eds.) World Loanword Database. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Borrowed from Italian banana, from Wolof banaana.

banana m (collective, singulative banana, paucal bananiet)

  1. banana (fruit)

    Borrowed from a Niger-Congo language spoken in the Guinea region.[1][2] Further derivation is unclear. Possible ancestor or cognate languages include Wolof banaana, Eastern Maninkakan banana, and Vai ꕒꘌꕯ (ɓaana) or ꕒꕌꕯ (ɓaana).[3][4] However, Ay Baati Wolof (Munro & Gaye, 1997) posits that Wolof banaana is itself derived from Portuguese.[5]

    • (Brazil) IPA(key): /baˈnɐ̃.nɐ/, /bɐˈnɐ.nɐ/
      • (Southern Brazil) IPA(key): /baˈnɐ.na/, /bɐˈnɐ.na/

    banana f (plural bananas)

    1. banana (fruit)
      Synonym: (Brazil) pacova
      As bananas são ricas em potássio ― Bananas are high in potassium
    2. banana (plant)
      Synonym: (more common) bananeira
    3. (informal) penis
    4. (Brazil, informal) bras d'honneur (obscene gesture)
      Synonym: (Portugal) manguito

    banana m or f by sense (plural bananas)

    1. (derogatory, slang) wimp (a weak or unconfident person)
      Aquele rapaz é um banana! ― That guy is a wimp!
    1. ^ Antenor Nascentes (1955) “banana”, in Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa [Portuguese language etymological dictionary] (in Portuguese), 2nd edition, volume I, Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Acadêmica, page 61, column 1
    2. ^ Academia das Ciências de Lisboa (2001–present) “banana”, in Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa‎[3]
    3. ^ “banana”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
    4. ^ S.W. Koelle (1854) Outlines of a Grammar of the Vei Language: Together with a Vei-English Vocabulary‎[4], London Church Missionary House, page 144
    5. ^ Munro, Pamela, Gaye, Dieynaba (1997) Ay baati Wolof: A Wolof dictionary (UCLA Occasional Papers in Linguistics)‎[5], Los Angeles: Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, →OCLC, page 15

    banana f

    1. definite singular nominative/accusative of banană (banana (fruit))

    From Spanish banana, from Wolof banaana.

    banana f (plural bananas)

    1. banana (fruit)

    From Spanish, from Portuguese, from Wolof banaana.

    • IPA(key): /banǎːna/
    • Hyphenation: ba‧na‧na

    banána f (Cyrillic spelling бана́на)

    1. banana
    • “banana”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025

    Derived from a Niger-Congo language spoken in the Guinea region,[1] probably through Portuguese banana.[2] Further derivation is unclear. Possible ancestor or cognate languages include Wolof banaana, Eastern Maninkakan banana, and Vai ꕒꘌꕯ (ɓaana) or ꕒꕌꕯ (ɓaana).[3][4] However, Ay Baati Wolof (Munro & Gaye, 1997) posits that Wolof banaana is itself derived from Portuguese banana.[5]

    • IPA(key): /baˈnana/ [baˈna.na]
    • Rhymes: -ana
    • Syllabification: ba‧na‧na

    banana f (plural bananas)

    1. (Rioplatense, Andes) banana (fruit)
      Synonyms: plátano, guineo, cambur, banano
    2. (Uruguay, colloquial) an idiot
    3. (Argentina, Dominican Republic, colloquial) smartass
    4. (Bolivia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, colloquial) penis
    • banana may also be used in Spain, to differentiate from plátano (“plantain”); otherwise, plátano refers to either.
    1. ^ Joan Coromines, José A[ntonio] Pascual (1984) “banana”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico [Critical Castilian and Hispanic Etymological Dictionary] (in Spanish), volume I (A–Ca), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 484
    2. ^ “Etimología de BANANA”, in DECEL - Diccionario Etimológico Castellano en Línea‎[6], 2024
    3. ^ “banana”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
    4. ^ S.W. Koelle (1854) Outlines of a Grammar of the Vei Language: Together with a Vei-English Vocabulary‎[7], London Church Missionary House, page 144
    5. ^ Munro, Pamela, Gaye, Dieynaba (1997) Ay baati Wolof: A Wolof dictionary (UCLA Occasional Papers in Linguistics)‎[8], Los Angeles: Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, →OCLC, page 15

    From English banana.

    banana

    1. banana

      • 1995, John Verhaar, Toward a reference grammar of Tok Pisin: an experiment in corpus linguistics‎[13] (overall work in English), →ISBN, page 433:

        Mekim olsem pinis, orait tupela i planim taro na banana, na kumu, painap, kon, tomato, na kaukau tu.

        (please add an English translation of this quotation)

    From English banana, from Wolof banaana, via Portuguese and/or Spanish.

    banana f (plural bananas)

    1. banana