noun
coconut
The large brown fruit of a tropical palm, or its edible white flesh.
Where it comes from
A coconut is the large fruit of a tropical palm, used for its flesh, liquid, oil, and fibre. English formed coconut from coco plus nut. Sixteenth-century Portuguese and Spanish sources associated coco with a grinning or grimacing face. The name was applied to the fruit because three depressions at one end of the shell resemble two eyes and a mouth. English then added the familiar category word nut. The result is partly a visual description: a nut marked with a little face.
How the meaning developed
The coco in coconut is the little face the shell seemed to make back at its namers.
Sources
- Coco, cocoa
- American Heritage Dictionary Entry: coconut
- Coco Definition & Meaning
- Coco, cocoa: World English Historical Dictionary
Definitions adapted from Open English WordNet where applicable. License and attribution. Word-history text comes from Lexifour’s sourced social research; pages are assembled automatically, not individually fact-checked on every update.
Updated 2026-10-05. Report a correction.