A tropical South American fruit tree producing a large heart-shaped fruit with creamy white flesh, also called a custard apple.
From Spanish chirimoya, derived from Quechua (an indigenous Andean language) chirimúya. The word traveled from indigenous peoples through Spanish colonizers into English and other European languages as trade in the fruit expanded globally.
The chirimoya's journey from Quechua word to Spanish to English to the gourmet fruit sections of modern supermarkets shows how language follows trade—indigenous knowledge about plants literally got renamed as it traveled the world through colonial commerce!
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