plantain--prophetes.ai

▪ I. plantain¹
    (ˈplænteɪn, -tɪn)
    Forms: 3 plauntein, 4 -eyne, -oyne, 5 -eyn; 4–5 plawnteyn(e; 4 planteine, 4–6 -ayn(e, 5–6 -eyne, 6–7 -an, -(a)ine, 6–9 -ane, 7 -in, -en, 7– plantain; also 6 playntayne, 8 plaintain.
    [ME. a. OF. plantain, -ein:—L. plantāgin-em (nom. plantāgo) plantain, app. from the root of planta sole of the foot, in reference to its broad prostrate leaves: cf. the OE. name Weᵹbráde, OHG. wegbreita, waybread or -brede (f. brád, Ger. breit broad).]
    1. a. A plant of the genus Plantago, esp. the Greater Plantain, P. major, a low herb with broad flat leaves spread out close to the ground, and close spikes of inconspicuous flowers, followed by dense cylindrical spikes of seeds.

[c 1265 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 559/27 Arnoglosa, plauntein.] c 1386 Chaucer Can. Yeom. Prol. & T. 28 His forheed dropped as a stillatorie Were ful of plantayne [v. rr. -eyne, -eyn, -ayn, pleintein] and of paritorie. 1390 Gower Conf. III. 131 The tenthe sterre is Almareth..His Ston is Jaspe, and of Planteine He hath his herbe sovereine. c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 351 Distempere it wiþ þe iuys of lactuce & plaunteyn. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 403/1 Planteyne, or plawnteyn, herbe, plantago. 1516 Grete Herbal cccxliv, Plantayne or weybrede..is an herbe that y⊇ greke call arnoglosse. It is called also..grete plantayne, and groweth in moyst places & playne feldes. 1577–87 Holinshed Chron. I. 9/2 A kind of herbe like vnto plantine. 1588 Shakes. L.L.L. iii. i. 74 Or sir, Plantan, a plaine Plantan. 1612 Two Noble K. i. ii. 61 These poore sleight sores Neede not a plantin. 1617 Moryson Itin. iii. 51 Those of Paduoa [are said] to love women with little brests, which makes their women use the juyce of Plantane to keep them from growing. 1736 Bailey Househ. Dict. s.v., The leaves of plantain are good for all sorts of ulcers, and for cicatrizing such as are old. 1872 Oliver Elem. Bot. ii. 222 The Seeds of Greater Plantain are a favourite food of cage-birds.

b. With defining words distinguishing species and varieties.
The chief are greater plantain (see above); broad-leaved p., Plantago maxima; hoary p., P. media; buck's-horn plantain or hartshorn p. (Star of the Earth), P. Coronopus; rose p., P. major var. rosea; seaside p., P. maritima; long, narrow-leaved plantain, or ribwort p., P. lanceolata.

1516 Grete Herbal cccxlv, Delanceolata... Longe plantayne is good agaynst fystales, yf the iuce be put in them dyuers dayes, it healeth and sleeth them. 1578 Lyte Dodoens i. lxiii. 92 We call the fourth [kind]..Sea Plantayne. Ibid. lxiv. 95 We may also call it Hartes horne Plantayne, Bucke⁓horne Plantayne, or Coronop Plantayne. 1629 Parkinson Paradisi lxxxv. 352 Plantago Rosea. Rose Plantane..is in all things like vnto the ordinary Plantane or Ribworte..but..hath..a thicke long spike of small greene leaues vpon short stalkes. 1741 Compl. Fam.-Piece ii. i. 325 That Herb which is called Rose Plantane, or by some, Star Plantane. 1742 Shenstone Schoolmistr. 103 And plaintain ribb'd, that heals the reaper's wound. 1861 Miss Pratt Flower. Pl. IV. 259 Plantago media (Hoary Plantain)..The leaves make a good astringent lotion. 1895 Syd. Soc. Lex., Plantago virginica, the white plantain or ribwort.

2. Applied with defining words to other plants resembling the plantain: as bastard plantain, Limosella aquatica; water plantain, Alisma Plantago; lesser water plantain, A. Ranunculus; least water plantain, ? = bastard plantain; white plantain, (?) Gnaphalium americanum.

1538 Turner Libellus, Alisma dioscoridæ..officinis & herbariis plantago aquatica..nostratibus water plantane or water waybrede. 1579 Langham Gard. Health (1633) 496 Falling euill, drink the leaues, roots or buds of water Planten. 1597 Gerarde Herbal ii. xciv. 343 Holosteum..is also called..Spanish hairie small Plantaine, or flowring sea Plantaine. 1687 J. Clayton in Phil. Trans. XLI. 145 They use also the Gnafalium Americanum, commonly called there White Plantain. 1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. App. 323 Plantain, Least Water, Limosella. Ibid., Plantain, Star-headed Water, Alisma. 1806 Gazetteer Scotl. (ed. 2) 360/1 Alisma ranunculoides, or lesser water plantain. 1861 Miss Pratt Flower. Pl. IV. 134 Common Mudwort..is sometimes called Bastard Plantain.

3. attrib. and Comb., as plantain leaf, hence plantain-leaved adj.; plantain lily = funkia, hosta; plantain shoreweed, Littorella lacustris; plantain-water, a decoction made from the plantain.

1592 Shakes. Rom. & Jul. i. ii. 52 Romeo. Your *Plantan leafe is excellent for that. Ben. For what I pray thee? Romeo. For your broken shin. 1747 Wesley Prim. Physic (1762) 37 A spoonful of the juice of Nettles and Plantane leaves.

1789 J. Pilkington View Derbysh. I. 395 *Plantain-leaved Sandwort.

1882 Garden 9 Sept. 225/1 This *Plantain Lily should be grown by everyone as a pot plant. 1894 W. Robinson Wild Garden (ed. 4) xiv. 170 The Plantain Lilies are plants for the wild garden. 1927 [see funkia]. 1957 C. Lloyd Mixed Border vi. 60 Among plantain lilies..the prevalence of slugs and snails is all too likely. 1976 B. Swain Commonsense of Gardening v. 207/2 The charming Plantain Lilies..have often disappointed because of unsuitable conditions.

1879 Prior Plant-names (ed. 3), *Plantain-Shoreweed, a weed of the plantain tribe found beside lakes and ponds.

1597 A. M. tr. Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. 25/2 They washe it with *Plantine-water.

▪ II. plantain² Now Obs. or rare.
    (ˈplænteɪn, -tɪn)
    Forms: 6 plantayne, -in, -yne, 7– plantain.
    [a. obs. F. plantain (16th c. in Godef.), plantoine, used beside platane, ad. L. platanus plane-tree, platan, of which there was also a med. or early mod.L. by-form plantanus: cf. plantain³.]
    The Plane (Platanus orientalis). Also attrib., as plantain leaf, plantain tree.

1535 Coverdale Ecclus. xxiv. 14, I am exalted like as a plantayne tre [Vulg. platanus] by the water syde. 1553 Brende Q. Curtius L viij, The riuer was shadowed ouer wyth Plantyne and Pople trees [platani quoque et populi]. 1608 Topsell Serpents (1658) 711 To Plantain-leaves [platani ramis] the Sparrow did her young commit. 1791 Gilpin Forest Scenery I. 291 In Turkey it is common to see inferior buildings raised around the bole of a large plantain. 1843 Borrow Bible in Spain xliv, In the streets of Aranjuez, and beneath the mighty cedars and gigantic elms and plantains which compose its noble woods.

▪ III. plantain³
    (ˈplænteɪn, -tɪn)
    Forms: 6 platan, 6–8 plantane, 7–8 -an, -aine, -ine, 7– plantain, (7–8 plaintain).
    [In 16th c. platan, plantan(e, ad. Sp. plátano, plántano, in same sense, identical in form with plátano, plántano plane-tree: see plantain², platan, plane n.¹
    There is no similarity of aspect or nature between the plane-tree and the plantain (a fact noted already by D'Acosta in 1590), so that no reason appears for a transfer of the name from the former to the latter. It has therefore been suggested that in this sense plátano was a corruption of some native name. And, in fact, the plantain or banana appears in Ant. Biet's Galibi Dictionary of 1664, and again in that of 1763, as palatana, in Raymond Breton's Carib Dict. of 1665 as ‘Balátana, grosses bananes’, and in the Arawak lang. as prátane. But there appears to be no material for determining whether these are native words, or merely corruptions of the Spanish. The Tupi name of the fruit is pacova.]
    1. A tree-like tropical herbaceous plant (Musa paradisiaca) closely allied to the Banana (M. sapientum), having immense undivided oblong leaves, and bearing its fruit, for which it is extensively cultivated, in long densely-clustered spikes.
    Musa paradisiaca and M. sapientum (the Banana), if really distinct species, are very closely allied, and some of their numerous varieties are scarcely distinguishable. The names plantain and banana are also imperfectly differentiated. In the West Indies, Western Africa, etc., banana is applied to the forms with a purple-spotted stem, and a smaller and more delicate fruit, which is eaten raw; while the name plantain is given to those with larger and coarser fruit, which is cooked as a vegetable; but in India this usage is reversed, plantain being the general name: see Yule Hobson-Jobson. In French, banane is the general name for both; so bananier a banana- or plantain-tree.

[1555 Eden Decades ii. 197 (tr. of Italian version, 1534, of Oviedo's Spanish, 1526) There are also certeine plantes which the christians caul Platani. 1589 Parke tr. Mendoza's Hist. China (Hakl. Soc.) II. 330 Orange trees, siders, limas, plantanos, and palmas. 1640 Parkinson Theat. Bot. xvi. lxix. 1497 They of Brassile call the tree Paquouere and the fruit Pacova, Oviedus and Acosta call it Platanus, for what cause is not knowne. 1760–72 tr. Juan & Ulloa's Voy. (ed. 3) I. 74 The most common of all are, the platanos... These are of three kinds. The first is the banana,..the second..are the dominicos... The third are the quincos.]

1604 E. G[rimstone] D'Acosta's Hist. Indies iv. (Hakl. Soc.) I. 241 The first that shall be needefulle to treate of is the Plantain, or Plantano, as the vulgar call it... The reason why the Spaniards call it platano (for the Indians had no such name) was, as in other trees, for that they have found some resemblance of the one with the other, even as they called some fruites prunes, pines, and cucumbers, being far different from those which are called by those names in Castille. 1615 G. Sandys Trav. 121 Plantains, that haue a broad flaggy leafe, growing in clusters, and shaped like cucumers. Ibid. 289 A groue of Plantines. 1657 R. Ligon Barbadoes 81 The Bonano differs nothing from the Plantine, in the body and leaves, but only this, that the leaves are somewhat lesse, and the bodie has here and there some blackish spots... This fruit is of a sweeter taste then the Plantine..we find them as good to stew, or preserve as the Plantine... This tree wants a little of the beauty of the Plantine. 1697 W. Dampier Voy. (1699) 316. 1698 Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 19 Lower than these, but with a Leaf far broader, stands the Curious Plantan. 1777 G. Forster Voy. round World I. 254 They handed up to us a green stem of a plantane. 1852 Th. Ross Humboldt's Trav. I. vi. 205 An acre planted with plantains produces nearly twenty times as much food as the same space sown with corn. 1882 Garden 22 July 65/2 A large specimen of this fine Plantain is now flowering in the Victoria house at Kew.

2. The fruit of this plant, a long, somewhat pod-shaped or cucumber-like, fleshy fruit (botanically a berry); it forms a staple food of a considerable part of the human race within the tropics.

1555 Eden Decades 197 This cluster owght to bee taken from the plant, when any one of the Platans begynne to appere yelowe. 1628 World Encomp. by Sir F. Drake (Hakl. Soc.) 142 Fruit which they call Figo.., but it is no other than that which the Spaniards and Portingalls have named Plantanes. 1634 Sir T. Herbert Trav. 183 Bananas or Plantanes. 1697 W. Dampier Voy. (1729) I. 311 The Plantain I take to be the King of all Fruit. 1698 Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 40 Bonanoes, which are a sort of Plantain, though less, yet much more grateful. 1740 Johnson Life Drake Wks. IV. 418 Ripe figs, cocoes, and plantains. 1777 G. Forster Voy. round World I. 343 Loads of horse-plantanes, a coarse sort, which grows almost without cultivation. 1860 E. B. Cowell in Life & Lett. (1904) 167, I generally keep to plaintains, which are like a very poor pear, grafted on a potato. 1875 J. Thomson Straits Malacca 8 Of the pisang or plantain..there are over thirty kinds of which the Pisang-mas, or golden plantain,..though one of the smallest, is nevertheless, most deservedly prized. 1897 M. Kingsley W. Africa 38 Along the Coast, and in other parts of Africa, the coarser, flat-sided kinds of banana are usually called plantains, the name banana being reserved for the finer sorts, such as the little ‘silver banana’.

3. Applied with defining words to other plants allied to or resembling the plantain; as bastard plantain (see quot. 1866); wild plantain, (a) the Indian Shot or Plantain-shot (Canna indica); (b) the Manilla Hemp plant (Musa textilis).

1756 P. Browne Jamaica 365 Wild Plantane Tree. This beautiful plant grows wild in most of the cooler mountains of Jamaica. 1866 Treas. Bot., Bastard Plantain, Heliconia Bihai. 1885 A. Brassey The Trades 181 Even the hardy wild-plantain (Canna indica) with its brilliant yellow stem and scarlet flowers..was reduced to a bare stem and branches.

4. attrib. and Comb., as plantain-drink, plantain-garden, plantain-leaf, plantain-stalk, plantain-tree; plantain-cutter, plantain-eater, a bird of the genus Musophaga or of the family Musophagidæ, a turaco; plantain-meal, the powdered substance of the dried fruit of the plantain; plantain-shot, a name given to Canna indica, the Indian Shot (see quot. 1750); plantain-walk, a plantation of plantains.

1663 Boyle Usef. Exp. Nat. Philos. ii. ii. 100 In the Barbada's they have many Drinks unknown to us; such as are Perino, the *Plantane-drink [etc.].

1801 Latham Synops. Birds Suppl. II. 104 *Plantain-eater... This beautiful bird is found on the plains near the borders of rivers in the province of Acra, in Guinea, and is said to live principally on the fruit of the plantain. 1886 Owen Vertebr. Anim. II. 12 Musophagidæ..Touraco or Plantain-eater.

1697 W. Dampier Voy. (1699) 167 These wild Indians have..good *Plaintain-Gardens; for Plantains are their chiefest food.

1681 R. Knox Hist. Ceylon 37 He eats on a green *Plantane-Leaf. 1859 Lang Wand. India 305 Portions..were distributed on plantain leaves to each guest by the Brahmins.

1871 Kingsley At Last xvi, Why should not *Plantain-meal be hereafter largely exported for the use of the English working classes?

1750 G. Hughes Barbadoes 168 The flowers are succeeded by small capsulæ, each inclosing a round black hard seed, as big as swan-shot. From these, and the make of its leaves, they derive the name of *Plantain-shot.

1613 Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 700 The Ganga..with *Plantaine stalkes hitteth euery one.

1640 Parkinson Theat. Bot. xvi. lxix. 1495 Musa arbor. The Indian Figge or *Plantaine tree. 1769 E. Bancroft Guiana 29 The Plantin Tree is natural to America.

1660 Hickeringill Jamaica (1661) 25 The *Plantane-Walks are usually made choice of, for such Nurseries. 1812 S. Rogers Columbus Poems (1839) 44 Thro' plantain-walks where not a sun-beam plays.