palm oil

• palm-oil

In the sense of a bribe, the phrase is a punning reference to the palm of the hand.

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palm oil (countable and uncountable, plural palm oils)

1. An edible plant oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis).

   Hyponym: palm fat

   • 2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29:

     Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.

2. (slang) Money given as a bribe.

The oil palm tree also yields a different type of oil from its kernel. This is known as palm kernel oil.

• lamp-oil, oil lamp, oil palm, oilpalm