PEAR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does pear mean? 

• PEAR (noun)
  The noun PEAR has 2 senses:

1. sweet juicy gritty-textured fruit available in many varieties

2. Old World tree having sweet gritty-textured juicy fruit; widely cultivated in many varieties

  Familiarity information: PEAR used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PEAR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Sweet juicy gritty-textured fruit available in many varieties

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("pear" is a kind of...):

edible fruit (edible reproductive body of a seed plant especially one having sweet flesh)

false fruit; pome (a fleshy fruit (apple or pear or related fruits) having seed chambers and an outer fleshy part)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pear"):

bosc (greenish-yellow pear)

anjou (a pear with firm flesh and a green skin)

bartlett; bartlett pear (juicy yellow pear)

seckel; seckel pear (small yellowish- to reddish-brown pear)

Holonyms ("pear" is a part of...):

pear; pear tree; Pyrus communis (Old World tree having sweet gritty-textured juicy fruit; widely cultivated in many varieties)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Old World tree having sweet gritty-textured juicy fruit; widely cultivated in many varieties

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

pear; pear tree; Pyrus communis

Hypernyms ("pear" is a kind of...):

fruit tree (tree bearing edible fruit)

Meronyms (parts of "pear"):

pear (sweet juicy gritty-textured fruit available in many varieties)

Holonyms ("pear" is a member of...):

genus Pyrus; Pyrus (fruit trees native to the Old World: pears)

 Context examples 

It has a distinctive pear shape with a wide base and a narrow microvillus apex.

(Brush Cell, NCI Thesaurus)

“When a person's umble, you know, what's an apology? So easy! I say! I suppose,” with a jerk, “you have sometimes plucked a pear before it was ripe, Master Copperfield?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Radar images from the flyby indicate that the comet is about 3,000 feet (1 kilometer) in diameter and has an irregular shape: looks like a brick on one side and a pear on the other.

(Comet Flying by Earth Observed with Radar and Infrared, NASA)

There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Then he looked around him, and said, I wish I had something to eat, if not I shall be worse off than before; for here I see neither apples nor pears, nor any kind of fruits, nothing but vegetables.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees, and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies, mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant herbs.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

For anything I know, he was eating something to keep the raw morning air out; but he made motions with his mouth as if the pear were ripe already, and he were smacking his lips over it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)