plantain1
/ˈplantɪn
/ /ˈplanteɪn/noun
A low-growing plant which typically has a rosette of leaves and a slender green flower spike, occurring widely as a weed of lawns.
- Genus Plantago, family Plantaginaceae: many species.
- The composition is punctuated by dramatic rocks, pine, bamboo and flowering prunus, plantain, rose and willow.
- Look out for sudden appearances of weeds such as dandelion and plantain in your lawn.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French, from Latin plantago, plantagin-, from planta 'sole of the foot' (because of its broad prostrate leaves).
plantain2
/ˈplantɪn/ /ˈplanteɪn/noun
1A banana containing high levels of starch and little sugar, which is harvested green and widely used as a cooked vegetable in the tropics.The Gabonese produce enough bananas, plantains, sugar, and soap to export to nearby cities, but 90 percent of the food is imported....
- Bananas are typically thought of as a dessert course while the starchy plantains are cooked before eating and are considered a major staple of the tropic countries.
- On the coast, there is great dependence on bananas and green plantains.
2The plant which bears the plantain.
- Musa × paradisiaca, family Musaceae.
- Excerpts from these will inscribed, along with Chinese ghost stories, on the leaves of a plantain palm - a tree said to attract ghosts in China - installed at the Fruitmarket.
- The fungus attacks all major varieties of bananas and plantains, turning the leaves a mottled yellow, brown and black, hindering photosynthesis.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from Spanish plá(n)tano, probably by assimilation of a South American word to the Spanish plá(n)tano 'plane tree'.