fig
n. countablen. a soft, sweet fruit with many tiny seeds inside. It is often eaten dried or used in cookies and cakes.
n. the edible fruit of various species of Ficus, especially Ficus carica, characterized by a soft, pear-shaped exterior and a sweet, seedy interior.
She ate a fresh fig for breakfast.
The baker used dried figs and walnuts to add texture and sweetness to the sourdough bread.
While fresh figs are highly perishable and best consumed immediately after harvest, their dried counterparts offer a concentrated sweetness that has been a staple of Mediterranean diets for millennia.
From Middle English fige, fygge (also fyke, from Old English fīc, see fike), borrowed from Anglo-Norman figue, borrowed from Old French figue, from Old Occitan figa, from Vulgar Latin *fīca (“fig”), from Latin fīcus (“fig tree”), from a pre-Indo European language, perhaps Phoenician 𐤐𐤂 (pg, literally “ripe fig”) (compare Biblical Hebrew פַּגָּה (paggâ, “early fallen fig”), Classical Syriac ܦܓܐ (paggāʾ), dialectal Arabic فَجّ (fajj), فِجّ (fijj)). (Another Semitic root (compare Akkadian 𒈠 (tīʾu, literally “fig”)) was borrowed into Ancient Greek as σῦκον (sûkon) (whence English sycophant; Boeotian τῦκον (tûkon)) and Armenian as թուզ (tʻuz).) The soap-making sense derives from the resemblance of the granulations in and texture of the soap to those of a fig. Doublet of fico.
Variation of fike.
See figging.
Countable when referring to the individual fruit; can be used as a modifier in compound nouns like 'fig tree' or 'fig leaf'.