opuntia
opuntia Lexical Profile
opuntia Game Scores & Validity
• noun
The young, tender, flattened stem pad (cladode) of an opuntia cactus, stripped of its spines and prepared as a traditional culinary vegetable (nopal) in Mexican and Southwestern cuisine.
The edible, sweet, fleshy, barrel-shaped berry produced by cacti of the genus Opuntia, commonly known as a prickly pear or tuna, having a thick skin studded with tiny bristles and juicy red, purple, yellow, or green pulp.
Any of various cacti of the genus Opuntia (family Cactaceae), commonly known as prickly pears, native to the Americas and characterized by flat, fleshy, paddle-shaped stem segments (cladodes) armed with spines and glochids, cultivated as drought-tolerant ornamentals for their showy, cup-shaped yellow, orange, red, or magenta flowers.
• Rhymes for opuntia
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed from Latin opuntia, from Ancient Greek Opountia, meaning a plant growing around Opus, an ancient town in Locris, Greece, mentioned by Pliny the Elder and later applied by botanists to the American prickly pear cactus.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.