banana

Borrowed from Portuguese banana or Spanish banana, derived from a Niger-Congo language spoken in the Guinea region.^[1] Specific derivation is unclear. Possible ancestor or cognate languages include Wolof banaana, Eastern Maninkakan banana, and Vai ꕒꘌꕯ (ɓaana) or ꕒꕌꕯ (ɓaana),^[2][3][4][5] possibly from Arabic بَنَان (banān, “fingertip, banana”).^[6] However, Ay Baati Wolof (Munro & Gaye, 1997) posits that Wolof banaana is itself derived from Portuguese banana.^[7]

The racial slur derives from the notion that they are “Yellow (East-Asian) on the outside, but White (Westernized) on the inside”.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: bə-näʹnə, IPA^(key): /bəˈnɑː.nə/
• (General American) enPR: bə-năʹnə, IPA^(key): /bəˈnæ.nə/

• Audio (Received Pronunciation):

  (file)

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːnə, -ænə
• Hyphenation: ba‧na‧na

banana (countable and uncountable, plural bananas)

2. An elongated curved tropical fruit of a banana plant, which grows in bunches and has a creamy flesh and a smooth skin.

   Jimmy had a banana for breakfast.

[from 1597]

1. • 2017, Sam Shepard, chapter 27, in Spy of the First Person, →ISBN, page 62:

     I'll need a few things. I'll need some mayonnaise and a silver tin of sardines, a banana.

   1. (Canada, US, UK, Ireland) In particular, the sweet, yellow fruit of the Cavendish banana cultivar, which may be eaten raw, as distinct from e.g. a plantain for cooking.
2. The tropical tree-like plant which bears clusters of bananas, a plant of the genus Musa (but sometimes also including plants from Ensete), which has large, elongated leaves. [from 1697]
3. (uncountable) A yellow color, like that of a banana's skin. [from 1923]

   banana:  

4. (derogatory, ethnic slur) A person of East or Southeast Asian descent, considered to be overly assimilated and subservient to white authority. [from 1970]

   Synonym: Twinkie

5. (Malaysia, Singapore, derogatory, ethnic slur) A person of Chinese descent who cannot speak Mandarin or any Chinese dialect
6. (slang) The penis.
   • 1986, Christopher Street, Cop Feels of Three Men's "Privates"‎^[10], volume 10:

     The fact that the cop bought O'Brien a beer after feeling of his banana suggests that it must have been a promising one

   • 2012, Sarah Miynowski, Fishbowl‎^[11], page 36:

     His you-know-what turned soft .. his eight o'clock class was the last thing on his mind five minutes ago, when his banana wasn't overripe.

   • 2014, Anthony Bunko, Lord Forgive Me‎^[12], page 71:

     Most of the gang were trying their best to shag the girls. One boy was sitting in a tree playing with himself and another was asking a table of teenagers if they would like to see his banana.

   • 2017, Intimate Relationships in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture‎^[13], page 234:

     He adds that after eating his banana (sucking his penis), he wants anal sex, but she asks him to lick her pussy. Then he tells her no because it is disgusting.

7. (sports) A banana kick.
8. (nuclear physics) A banana equivalent dose.
9. (computer science, colloquial) A catamorphism (from the use of banana brackets in the notation).

• (fruit): fruit
• (Asian assimilated into Western culture): race traitor

• (Asian assimilated into Western culture): jook-sing

• (Asian assimilated into Western culture): egg, coconut, Oreo
• (fruit): finger, hand

• → Japanese: バナナ
• → Korean: 바나나 (banana)
• → Maori: panana
• → Tok Pisin: banana
• → Zulu: úbhanána

banana (not comparable)

1. Curved like a banana, especially of a ball in flight.
   • 2001, Rayne Barton, The Green Hills Golf Chronicles, →ISBN, page 155:

     Even the lowly banana ball, the bane of so many weekenders, sometimes can be exactly right, as in this case.

   • 2002, Andrew Collins, Guild of Honor, →ISBN, page 53:

     He played the fading, low-banana shot as planned, and the ball whistled left of the oak tree and between the pines.

   • 2006, Richard Witzig, The Global Art of Soccer, →ISBN, page 247:

     [...]Bernd Schneider closed the scoring in injury-time with a 23 meter free-kick banana shot into the upper-right corner.

• bunch
• hand
• Appendix:English collective nouns

• bananas (adjective)

• Annaba

• IPA^(key): /baˈnana/ [baˈna.na]
• Rhymes: -ana
• Syllabification: ba‧na‧na

banana f (plural bananes)

1. banana (fruit)

   Synonym: plátanu

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [bəˈna.nə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [baˈna.na]

• Audio:

  (file)

banana f (plural bananes)

1. banana (fruit)

   Synonym: plàtan

• bananer

• “banana”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007

From English banana.

• (Revived Middle Cornish) IPA^(key): [baˈnaːna]
• (Revived Late Cornish) IPA^(key): [bəˈnæːnɐ]

banana m (plural bananas)

1. banana

• Audio:

  (file)

banana

1. third-person singular past historic of bananer (to make a mistake)

• IPA^(key): /baˈnana/ [baˈnã.nɐ]
• Rhymes: -ana
• Hyphenation: ba‧na‧na

banana f (plural bananas)

1. banana (fruit)

   Synonym: plátano

   Os chimpancés utilizan bastóns para coller unha banana.

   Chimpanzees use sticks to pick up a banana.

• bananeira

• “banana”, in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega (in Galician), A Coruña: Royal Galician Academy, 2012–2025

• Rhymes: -aːnana

banana

1. definite accusative plural of bani
2. inflection of banani:
   1. indefinite accusative
   2. indefinite dative singular
   3. indefinite genitive

From Wolof banaana.

• IPA^(key): /bˠəˈn̪ˠan̪ˠə/

banana m (genitive singular banana, nominative plural bananaí)

1. banana

• crann bananaí (“banana-tree”)

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “banana”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

• IPA^(key): /baˈna.na/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ana
• Hyphenation: ba‧nà‧na

banana f (plural banane)

1. banana (fruit)

• → Maltese: banana

banana m (invariable)

1. banana (color)

banana (invariable)

1. banana (color)

• banano

banana

1. Rōmaji transcription of バナナ

banana f (genitive bananae); first declension

1. (New Latin) banana

   Synonyms: (Classical Latin, rare) ariēna, (Medieval Latin) mūsa

   • 1619, Americæ pars undecima: Seu descriptio admirandi itineris a Guilielmo Schouten Hollando peracti: […], Oppenheim: Typis Hieronymi Galleri, page 41:

     Illi amicabiliter ad navem noſtram appellentes, tantum Cocorum ac Bananarum nobis obtulerunt numerum, ut quilibet in navi nuces 50. duos Bananarum corbes eo die lucraretur.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1622, Antonio de Herrera [y Tordesillas], translated by C[aspar] Barlæus, Novus Orbis, Sive Descriptio Indiae Occidentalis, […], Amsterdam: Apud Michaelem Colinium Bibliopolam, ad insigne Libri Domestici, page 71:

     Tabaci, Cocorum, Bananarum, oryzæ, piſorum, fabarum, porcorum, gallinarum & piſcium nobis faciebant copiam.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1832, Voyage de la corvette l’Astrolabe : Exécuté pár ordre du roi, pendant les années 1826-1827-1828-1829, sous le commandement de M. J. Dumont d’Urville, […], volume IV, Paris: J. Tastu, […], page 686:

     Hi Æthiopes monstrabant ut tormenta nostra exploderemus in canoas istas, sed significabatur ipsis, hoc à natura batava alienum, nocere inculpatis, si vero nos læderent, arma nobis data defensioni, nihilominus advolant amicè, adferentes tantam abundantiam cocorum et bananarum, quantam desiderabamus, ut socio unicuique quinquaginta nuces distribuerentur et duo fasciculi bananarum.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1884, Francis William Newman, Rebilius Cruso: Robinson Crusoe, in Latin; a Book to Lighten Tedium to a Learner, London: Trübner & Co., […], page 56:

     Jam dactylos, bananas, cocos nuces, ananassas, uvas, ad libitum me habiturum spero: nimia me spes et nimia cupiditas festinavit. […] Modicum bananarum et dactylorum onus assumo: vescor quantum libet, bibo e rivulo, et, relictâ scaphâ, ascendo vallem.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 2010 January 21, Erik Collins, “Sample Lesson: Lesson plans for Capitulum VIII of Oerberg’s Lingua Latīna”, in LATIN 4770: Methods and Materials for Teaching Latin (The Official Wheelock’s Latin Series Website):

     Post mēnsam, delīnā tabernārium in tabernā, quī māla et bananās vendit.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

First-declension noun.

From German Banane, ultimately from Wolof banaana.

• IPA^(key): /baˈnana/

banana f

1. banana

• Starosta, Manfred (1999) “banana”, in Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (in German), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag
• Lower Sorbian vocabulary. In: Haspelmath, M. & Tadmor, U. (eds.) World Loanword Database. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

• banan
• fikabanana, figabanana (obsolete)

Borrowed from Italian banana.

• IPA^(key): /baˈnaː.na/, /baˈna.na/

banana m (collective, singulative banana, paucal bananiet)

1. banana (fruit)

Borrowed from a Niger-Congo language spoken in the Guinea region.^[1][2] Further derivation is unclear. Possible ancestor or cognate languages include Wolof banaana, Eastern Maninkakan banana, and Vai ꕒꘌꕯ (ɓaana) or ꕒꕌꕯ (ɓaana).^[3][4] However, Ay Baati Wolof (Munro & Gaye, 1997) posits that Wolof banaana is itself derived from Portuguese.^[5]

• (Northeast Brazil) IPA^(key): /bɐ̃ˈnɐ̃.nɐ/
• Rhymes: -ɐ̃nɐ, -ɐnɐ
• Hyphenation: ba‧na‧na

banana f (plural bananas)

1. banana (fruit)

   Synonym: (Brazil) pacova

   As bananas são ricas em potássio ― Bananas are high in potassium

2. banana (plant)

   Synonym: (more common) bananeira

3. (informal) penis
4. (Brazil, informal) bras d'honneur (obscene gesture)

   Synonym: (Portugal) manguito

banana m or f by sense (plural bananas)

1. (derogatory, slang) wimp (a weak or unconfident person)

   Aquele rapaz é um banana! ― That guy is a wimp!

banana f

1. definite singular nominative/accusative of banană (banana (fruit))

From Spanish banana, from Wolof banaana.

• IPA^(key): /banana/

banana f (plural bananas)

1. banana (fruit)

From Spanish, from Portuguese, from Wolof banaana.

• IPA^(key): /banǎːna/
• Hyphenation: ba‧na‧na

banána f (Cyrillic spelling бана́на)

1. banana

• “banana”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025

Derived from a Niger-Congo language spoken in the Guinea region,^[1] probably through Portuguese banana.^[2] Further derivation is unclear. Possible ancestor or cognate languages include Wolof banaana, Eastern Maninkakan banana, and Vai ꕒꘌꕯ (ɓaana) or ꕒꕌꕯ (ɓaana).^[3][4] However, Ay Baati Wolof (Munro & Gaye, 1997) posits that Wolof banaana is itself derived from Portuguese banana.^[5]

• IPA^(key): /baˈnana/ [baˈna.na]

• Audio (Costa Rica):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ana
• Syllabification: ba‧na‧na

banana f (plural bananas)

1. (Rioplatense, Andes, Guatemala, Honduras) banana (fruit)

   Synonyms: plátano, guineo, cambur, banano

2. (Uruguay, colloquial) an idiot
3. (Argentina, Dominican Republic, colloquial) smartass
4. (Bolivia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, colloquial) penis

• banana may also be used in Spain, to differentiate from plátano (“plantain”); otherwise, plátano refers to either.

• →? English: banana (see there for further descendants)
• ⇒? Latvian: banāns
• ⇒? Norwegian Bokmål: banan
• ⇒? Norwegian Nynorsk: banan
• ⇒ Serbo-Croatian:
  • Cyrillic script: бана́на
  • Latin script: banána
• ⇒? Swedish: banan, bananas (obsolete)
  • → Finnish: banaani

• “banana”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

From English banana.

banana

1. banana
   • 1995, John Verhaar, Toward a reference grammar of Tok Pisin: an experiment in corpus linguistics‎^[14] (overall work in English), →ISBN, page 433:

     Mekim olsem pinis, orait tupela i planim taro na banana, na kumu, painap, kon, tomato, na kaukau tu.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

From English banana, from Wolof banaana, via Portuguese and/or Spanish.

• (North Wales) IPA^(key): /baˈnana/
• (South Wales) IPA^(key): /baˈna(ː)na/
• Rhymes: -ana

banana f (plural bananas)

1. banana

   Synonym: (humorous) ffrwchnedden

• twinc bananas (“bananquit”)