sour-sopn.
Botany.
1. The fruit of the West Indian tree, Anona muricata.
ΘΚΠ
the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > particular food plant or plant product > particular types of fruit > [noun] > tropical exotic fruit > of South America or West Indies > sour-sop
prickle-apple1578
prickled apple1657
sour-sop1667
1667 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 2 501 The Sower-sop, a pleasant fruit there, hath a flower with three leaves.
1683 T. Tryon Way to Health 570 Sweet Oranges and Lemmons, Plantans, Coco-Nuts, Sower-Sops, &c.
1703 W. Dampier Voy. New Holland ii. 67 The Sour-sop (as we call it) is a large Fruit as big as a Man's Head,..and of a green Colour.
1740 New Hist. Jamaica 51 Fruits grow in great Plenty,..Mamies, sour Sops, Papas,..and several Kind of Berries.
c1825 J. Choyce Log of Jack Tar (1891) 22 We..got plenty and abundance of fruit, such as oranges, limes,..pears, soursops, &c.
1849 J. H. Balfour Man. Bot. §745 The Custard-apples, Sweetsops, and Soursops, of the East and West Indies, are furnished by various species of Anona.
1871 C. Kingsley At Last I. ii. 49 It is the cousin of the prickly sour-sop.
2. The tree bearing this fruit.
ΘΚΠ
the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > particular food plant or plant product > particular fruit-tree or -plant > [noun] > tropical or exotic fruit-tree or -plant > of tropical America > other American fruit-plants
guava1555
anchovy pear1657
river pear1696
sour-sop tree1696
monkey apple1750
stopper-berry tree1750
sour-sop1753
chocho1756
sweet plum1796
pequi1819
Spanish plum1823
jaboticaba1824
christophene1830
Quito orange1846
pepino1850
mountain mango1861
chayote1884
Suriname cherry1895
feijoa1898
choko1902
1753 Chambers's Cycl. Suppl. App. Soure-sop, or Sowre-sop, in botany, a distinct genus of plants, called by botanists guanabanus and anona.
1764 J. Grainger Sugar-cane i. 42 A neighbouring dell, (Which nature to the soursop had resign'd).
1824 J. C. Loudon Encycl. Gardening (ed. 2) §6732 The following are some of the most remarkable of the economical tropical plants... Sour-sop (Annona muricata).
1880 C. E. Bessey Bot. 561 A. squamosa, Sweet Sop, and A. muricata, Sour sop,..produce edible fruits.
3. = soursob n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > plants > particular plants > plants and herbs > according to family > Oxalidaceae (wood-sorrel and allies) > [noun]
sorrel de boysa1400
wood-soura1400
hallelujahc1425
cuckoobread1526
cuckoo's meat1526
wood sorrel1526
stubwort1541
sour trefoil1578
stobwort1597
salad sorrel1611
French sorrel1633
three-leaved grass1634
stab-wort1640
lujula1651
oxalis1706
goat's foot1787
sour grass1866
sour-sop1885
soursob1907
1885 Garden & Field (Adelaide) Aug. 29/3 ‘Amateur’ wants to know a remedy for ‘soursops’, and if gas lime would do.
1885 Garden & Field (Adelaide) Sept. 41/1 Now there's a fellow who wants £500 to tell farmers how to kill the Soursops or oxalis.
1930 A. J. Ewart Flora of Victoria 687 O[xalis] cernua..Soursop. A perennial with a brown bulb and a tapering root... A troublesome weed, native to South Africa, originally a garden escape.
4. attributive, as sour-sop bird, sour-sop tree.
ΘΚΠ
the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > particular food plant or plant product > particular fruit-tree or -plant > [noun] > tropical or exotic fruit-tree or -plant > of tropical America > other American fruit-plants
guava1555
anchovy pear1657
river pear1696
sour-sop tree1696
monkey apple1750
stopper-berry tree1750
sour-sop1753
chocho1756
sweet plum1796
pequi1819
Spanish plum1823
jaboticaba1824
christophene1830
Quito orange1846
pepino1850
mountain mango1861
chayote1884
Suriname cherry1895
feijoa1898
choko1902
1696 H. Sloane Catal. Plantarum in Jamaica 204 The Sowre~sop Tree.
1756 P. Browne Civil & Nat. Hist. Jamaica ii. ii. 255 The Sour-sop Tree. This..is one of the most common plants in every Savanna.
1834 Penny Cycl. II. 54/2 The following spirited sketch..of the appearance of the sour sop tree.
1895 I. K. Funk et al. Standard Dict. Eng. Lang. II. (at cited word) Sour-sop bird,..tanager (Calliste versicolor).
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1913; most recently modified version published online June 2021).
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