ginkgo
noun
deciduous dioecious Chinese tree having fan-shaped leaves and fleshy yellow seeds; exists almost exclusively in cultivation especially as an ornamental street tree
Origin
From Japanese 銀杏 (ginkyō), from Chinese 銀杏／银杏 (yínxìng, “silver apricot”). Ginkgo is the name that is printed in Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum Fasciculi V … (1712) authored by Engelbert Kaempfer, the first Westerner to see the species. In his way of transcription ginkyo would have been Ginkjo or Ginkio but was printed as Ginkgo. This was read by Carl Linnaeus, and the misspelling stuck.
Phrases
- ginkgo nut
- ginkgo-toothed beaked whale
Related words
Broader terms
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.