Dictionary

mesquite en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈmɛskiːt/
• /mɛsˈkiːt/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish mezquite, mizquite, from Nahuatl mizquitl (“the mesquite tree”).

Meanings

1. Any of several deciduous trees of the genus Prosopis found in America, and used as forage, which have long, beige seed and bean pods which may be dried and ground into a sweet, nutty flour.
   • […] and no botanist could for a moment fail to recognize this fact, especially as just beyond its banks there is growing on every hand the mesquite, the everywhere-present species of the Lower Sonoran zone. 1909, Volney Morgan Spalding, Distribution and movements of desert plants:
   • Between these canyons the river has a low but rather narrow flood plain, with cottonwood groves scattered here and there, and a chaparral of mesquite bearing beans and thorns. 1895, J[ohn] W[esley] Powell, chapter I, in Canyons of the Colorado, Meadville, PA: Flood & Vincent; republished as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, New York: Dover, 1961, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 20:
2. The wood of these trees, used for smoking food, or charcoal made from this wood.
3. Country or land dominated by mesquite trees.
   • Southward and in the very center of the plain is La Mesa, hidden in the mesquite and with splendid, typically dug, wells. 1900, David Prescott Barrows, The ethno-botany of the Coahuilla Indians of Southern California:
   • Tucson is situated in beautiful mesquite riverbed country, overlooked by the snowy Catalina range. 1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC:

Forms

Deriveds

mesquite mistletoe · screwbean mesquite · mesquite grass · honey mesquite · curly mesquite · mesquite bush · mesquite gum · mesquite bean · mesquite stinger moth · screw pod mesquite · vine mesquite · mock mesquite · screw-pod mesquite · mesquite lizard · mesquite webworm moth · mesquite flour · mesquite looper moth · false mesquite · mesquite mouse · giant mesquite bug · western honey mesquite · mesquite gall midge

Hypernyms

acacia

Translations (11)

ru мески́товое де́рево (Prosopis) · de Mesquite-Baum (Prosopis) · fi meskite (Prosopis) · cmn 豆科灌木 (Prosopis) · nah mizquitl (Prosopis) · pt mesquite (Prosopis) · nv díwózhiishzhiin (Prosopis) · par ohpimpü (Prosopis) · qu churki (Prosopis) · es mezquite (Prosopis) · haw kiawe (Prosopis)