noun
1. any of numerous varieties of crab apples cultivated for their small acidic (usually bright red) fruit used for preserves or as ornamentals for their blossoms
• Syn: ↑crabapple, ↑cultivated crab apple
• Hypernyms: ↑apple tree
• Hyponyms:
↑Siberian crab, ↑Siberian crab apple, ↑cherry apple, ↑cherry crab, ↑Malus baccata, ↑Southern crab apple, ↑flowering crab, ↑Malus angustifolia
• Part Meronyms: ↑crabapple
2. any of numerous wild apple trees usually with small acidic fruit
• Syn: ↑wild apple, ↑crabapple
• Hypernyms: ↑apple tree
• Hyponyms:
↑wild crab, ↑Malus sylvestris, ↑American crab apple, ↑garland crab, ↑Malus coronaria, ↑Oregon crab apple, ↑Malus fusca, ↑Iowa crab, ↑Iowa crab apple, ↑prairie crab, ↑western crab apple, ↑Malus ioensis
3. small sour apple; suitable for preserving
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crabapples make a tangy jelly
• Syn: ↑crabapple
• Hypernyms: ↑apple
• Part Holonyms: ↑crabapple, ↑cultivated crab apple
* * *
noun, pl ⋯ apples [count]
: a small, sour apple or the kind of tree that produces it
* * *
a tree that produces fruit like small hard sour apples, also called crab apples
•
crab-apple jelly
Word Origin:
late Middle English: crab perhaps an alteration (influenced by ↑crab or ↑crabbed) of Scots and northern English scrab, in the same sense, probably of Scandinavian origin.
Useful english dictionary. 2012.