mesquite

CEFRB2

/mɛsˈkiːt/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A thorny tree or shrub common in dry parts of America.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    Country or land dominated by mesquite trees.

Examples

  • The mesquite tree is native to Texas.

  • We cooked the steaks over a smoky mesquite fire.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
4
Parts of speech
1
Citations
4

Also pronounced

  • /ˈmɛskiːt/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. The wood of these trees, used for smoking food, or charcoal made from this wood.

  2. Any of several deciduous trees of the genus Prosopis found in America, and used as forage, which have long, beige seed and bean pods which may be dried and ground into a sweet, nutty flour.

More examples

In context

  • We used mesquite wood for the barbecue.

  • Between these canyons the river has a low but rather narrow flood plain, with cottonwood groves scattered here and there, and a chaparral of mesquite bearing beans and thorns.

  • […] and no botanist could for a moment fail to recognize this fact, especially as just beyond its banks there is growing on every hand the mesquite, the everywhere-present species of the Lower Sonoran zone.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

In the dry deserts of the southwest, the blank tree provides wood for barbecues.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

Borrowed from Spanish mezquite, mizquite, from Nahuatl mizquitl (“the mesquite tree”).