banana

From Wolof banaana, via Spanish or Portuguese, of unknown origin, but potentially from Arabic بَنَان (banān, “fingertip”).[1]

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

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

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: bə-näʹnə, IPA^(key): /bəˈnɑː.nə/

  • Audio (RP) [bəˈnɑː.nɐ]

    (file)

• (General American) enPR: bə-năʹnə, IPA^(key): /bəˈnæ.nə/

  • Audio (GA) [bəˈnɛ̃ə̃.nə]

    (file)

• Hyphenation: ba‧na‧na
• Rhymes: -ɑːnə, -ænə

banana (countable and uncountable, plural bananas)

1. An elongated curved tropical fruit of a banana plant, which grows in bunches and has a creamy flesh and a smooth skin.
   • 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.
2. 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.
3. (uncountable) A yellow colour, like that of a banana's skin.

   banana:  

4. (derogatory, ethnic slur) A person of East Asian descent, especially an ethnic Chinese from a Western country who does not speak Chinese, considered to be overly assimilated and subservient to White authority.

   Synonym: Twinkie

5. (slang) The penis.
   • 1986, Christopher Street, Cop Feels of Three Men's "Privates"‎, 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, 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, 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, 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.

6. (sports) A banana kick.
7. (nuclear physics) A banana equivalent dose.
8. (computer science, colloquial) A catamorphism (from the use of banana brackets in the notation).

• (fruit): fruit
• (Asian assimilated into Western culture): race traitor

• (Asian assimilated into Western culture): jook-sing

• (Asian assimilated into Western culture): egg, coconut, Oreo
• (fruit): finger, hand

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.

• bunch
• hand
• Appendix:English collective nouns

• bananas (adj)

• Annaba

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

banana f (plural bananes)

1. banana (fruit)

   Synonym: plátanu

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [bəˈna.nə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencian) [baˈna.na]

• Audio

  (file)

banana f (plural bananes)

1. banana (fruit)

   Synonym: plàtan

• bananer

• “banana” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

From English banana.

• (Revived Middle Cornish) IPA^(key): [baˈnaːna]
• (Revived Late Cornish) IPA^(key): [bəˈnæːnɐ]

banana m (plural bananas)

1. banana

• Audio

  (file)

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.

• bananeira

• “banana”, in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega (in Galician), A Coruña: Royal Galician Academy, since 2012

• Rhymes: -aːnana

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

• crann bananaí (“banana-tree”)

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “banana”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

• IPA^(key): /baˈna.na/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ana
• Hyphenation: ba‧nà‧na

banana f (plural banane)

1. banana (fruit)

banana m (invariable)

1. banana (color)

banana (invariable)

1. banana (color)

• banano

banana

1. Rōmaji transcription of バナナ

From German Banane, ultimately from Wolof banaana.

• IPA^(key): /baˈnana/

banana f inan

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.

• IPA^(key): /baˈnaː.na/

banana m (collective, singulative banana, paucal bananiet)

1. banana (fruit)

Uncertain. Possibly from Wolof banaana (“banana”) or Arabic بَنَان (banān, “fingertip, banana”).

• (Northeast Brazil) IPA^(key): /bɐ̃ˈnɐ̃.nɐ/
• Rhymes: -ɐ̃nɐ, -ɐnɐ
• Hyphenation: ba‧na‧na

banana f (plural bananas)

1. banana (fruit)

   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!

banana f

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

From Spanish banana, from Wolof banaana.

• IPA^(key): /banana/

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

Borrowed from Wolof banaana.

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

banana f (plural bananas)

1. (Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay) banana (fruit)

   Synonyms: plátano, guineo, cambur, banano

• banana may also be used in Spain, to differentiate from plátano (“plantain”); otherwise, plátano refers to either.

• “banana”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

From English banana.

banana

1. banana
   • 1995, John Verhaar, Toward a reference grammar of Tok Pisin: an experiment in corpus linguistics‎ (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.

• (North Wales) IPA^(key): /baˈnana/
• (South Wales) IPA^(key): /baˈna(ː)na/
• Rhymes: -ana

banana f (plural bananas)

1. banana

• (jocular) ffrwchnedden