Are you planning on traveling Spanish-speaking country near the equator and want to enjoy tropical fruits? If you do, or if you plan on shopping at any place Spanish is spoken, this list of Spanish words for fruits will come in handy.
Fruit Names in Spanish A-G
Glossary of Dry fruits, Nuts and seeds in English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. In its purest form, dried fruits are just fresh fruits with the water removed. Dehydration causes some nutrients to.
- apple — la manzana
- apricot — el damasco, el albericoque
- avocado — el aguacate
- banana — el plátano, la banana
- blackberry — la mora, la zarzamora
- blackcurrant — la grosella negra
- blueberry — el arándano
- camu camu — el camu camu
- cantaloupe — el cantalupo
- cherimoya — la chirimoya
- cherry — la cereza
- citron -- el cidro, el citrón, la toronja
- coconut — el coco
- cucumber — el pepino
- cranberry — el arándano
- date — el dátil
- fig — el higo
- galia — el melón galia
- gooseberry — la grosella espinosa
- grape — la uva (A dried grape or raisin is una pasa or una uva pasa.)
- grapefruit — el pomelo, la toronja
- guarana — la fruta de guaraná
Fruit Names in Spanish H-Z
- honeydew melon — el melón tuna
- huckleberry — el arándano
- kiwi — el kiwi
- kumquat — el kinoto
- lemon — el limón
- lime — la lima, el limón
- loganberry — la zarza, la frambuesa
- lychee — la lichi
- mandarin — la mandarina
- mango — el mango
- melon — el melón
- mulberry — la mora
- naranjilla — la naranjilla, el lulo
- nectarine — la nectarina
- olive — la oliva, la aceituna
- orange — la naranja
- papaya — la papaya
- passionfruit -- la maracuyá, la parcha, la fruta de pasión
- peach — el durazno, el melocotón
- pear — la pera
- persimmon — el caqui
- pineapple — la piña, el ananá
- plantain — el plátano
- plum — la ciruela
- pomegranate — la granada
- prickly pear — la tuna, el higo chumbo
- quince — el membrillo
- raspberry — la frambuesa
- strawberry — la fresa, la frutilla
- tamarind — el tamarindo
- tangerine — la mandarina, la tangerina
- tomatillo — el tomatillo
- tomato — el tomate
- watermelon — la sandía
Many fruits have local or regional names that may not be understood outside the area. Also, the English and Spanish words for particular fruits may not always be an exact match, sometimes because two similar species of fruits may share a name. For example, what is known as un arándano in Spanish goes by several different names in English, such as huckleberry, bilberry, blueberry, and cranberry. One common source of confusion is that a limón can refer to a lemon or a lime depending on the region.
- The names of many fruits are similar in English and Spanish, either because they have a common origin (such as from Latin) or because the English borrowed a fruit name from Spanish.
- The trees or other plants that produce sometimes have distinctive names related to the name of the fruit.
- Some fruits have names that are understood only in certain localities.
Common Foods Made With Fruit
- apple cider — la sidra sin alcohol
- apple crisp, apple crumble — el crujiente de manzana
- apple pie — el pastel de manzana
- compote — la compota
- fruitcake — el pastel de fruta
- fruit cocktail — el cóctel de frutas
- fruit salad — la ensalada de frutass
- jam — la marmelada
- juice — el jugo, el zumo
- peach cobbler — el pastel de durazno, tarta de durazno
- strawberry sundae — el sundae de fresa, el helado con fresas
Fruit Names English and Spanish Share
English and Spanish share the names of various fruits for one of two reasons. Either the English name came from Spanish, or English and Spanish gained the name from a common source. There are no fruits on this list in which the Spanish derived from English, although it's likely that kiwi, a word from Maori, was adopted because of U.S. English influence. Here are etymologies of several Spanish-derived fruit names we use in English:
- papaya — Spanish picked up papaya from Arawak, an indigenous language of the West Indies, and it spread to English via the shipping industry.
- pear — The English name for the fruit comes from the Latin pera, which is also what it's called in Spanish.
- plantain — 'Plantain' has two meanings — a fruit similar to a banana and a type of flat-leaved weed. Both are called plátano in Spanish. The words with the first meaning probably came to us via Spanish, which picked up the word from the West Indies, while the word with the second meaning came indirectly from Greek.
- tomatillo — Tomatillo in Spanish is tomate with the diminutive suffix-illo. Other Spanish food words using this suffix include tortilla (omelette or tortilla, from torta, cake), mantequilla (butter, from manteca, lard or some types of butter), and bolillo (bread roll, related to bola, ball).
- tomato — At one time, the tomato was called a 'tomate' in English, the same as its Spanish name. The Spanish in turn came from Nahuatl, an indigenous Mexican language, which used the word tomatl. The tl ending is very common noun ending in Nahuatl.
Sources for some of the other fruit names include Italian (cantalupo and 'cantaloupe'), Latin (pera and 'pear'), and Arabic (naranja and 'orange').
Words for Fruit-Producing Plants
Although the words for 'tree' and 'bush' are árbol and arbusto, respectively, many of them that produce fruit have names related to the name of the fruit. Here are some of them:
- apple tree — el manzano
- blackberry bush — la zarza
- cherry tree — el cerezo
- grapevine — la vid, la parra
- lemon tree — el limonero
- orange tree — el naranjo
- pear tree — el peral
- tomato vine — la rama de tomate