tomato

CEFRA1

/təˈmɑː.təʊ/

noun · adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A soft red fruit often used in salads and cooking.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A shade of red, the colour typical of a ripe tomato.

Examples

  • The tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit.

  • The tomato is subject to a number of diseases.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
2

Also pronounced

  • [-ma-]
  • [tʰəˈmeɪɾo]

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. The savory fruit of this plant, most often red when ripe, treated as a vegetable in horticulture and cooking.

  2. A widely cultivated plant, Solanum lycopersicum, having edible fruit.

adjective

Extra meaning

  1. Of a shade of red, the colour of a ripe tomato.

More examples

In context

  • He was chopping a tomato to put in the salad.

  • He was eating a tomato when his boss called him.

  • In common parlance tomatoes are vegetables, as the Supreme Court observed long ago [see Nix v. Hedden 149 U.S. 304, 307, 13 S.Ct. 881, 882, 37 L.Ed. 745 (1893)], although botanically speaking they are actually a fruit. [26 Encyclopedia Americana 832 (Int'l. e...

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Many people mistakenly think the red blank is a vegetable, but it is actually a fruit.

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

Nearby

Origin

noun

Variant of earlier tomate, from Spanish tomate, from Classical Nahuatl tomatl, from Proto-Nahuan *toma-tl. Compare tomatillo.