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per·sim·mon

(pər-sĭmən)

1. Any of various chiefly tropical trees of the genus Diospyros, having hard wood and orange-red fruit with sweet usually soft pulp, especially D. kaki, native to East Asia, and D. virginiana, native to the eastern United States.

2. The fruit of any of these trees.

[From Virginia Algonquian pessemmins, putchamins (as recorded in English-language accounts of Virginia from the early 1600s by John Smith and others) : pesse-, of unknown meaning + -min, fruit, berry (from Proto-Algonquian *-min; compare -mi·n in Unami xi·mi·n, persimmon).]

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persimmon

Diospyros sp.

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

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The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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