plantain
Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
plantain1 /ˈplantɪn, -teɪn/
▶noun a low-growing plant that typically has a rosette of leaves and a slender green flower spike. [Genus Plantago: many species.]
– origin ME: from OFr., from L. plantago, plantagin-, from planta ‘sole of the foot’ (because of its broad prostrate leaves).
Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
plantain2 /ˈplantɪn, -teɪn/
▶noun
- 1 a type of banana containing high levels of starch and little sugar, which is harvested green and widely used as a cooked vegetable in the tropics.
- 2 the plant which bears plantains. [Musa × paradisiaca.]
– origin C16: from Sp. plá(n)tano, prob. by assimilation of a S. Amer. word to the Sp. plá(n)tano ‘plane tree’.
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