Pear - Dictionary Definition and Overview

Pear :  (noun)
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 [syn: pear tree, Pyrus communis]

Based on WordNet 2.0

Pear : \Pear\ (p[^a]r), n. [OE. pere, AS. peru, L. pirum: cf. F. poire. Cf. Perry.] (Bot.) The fleshy pome, or fruit, of a rosaceous tree ({Pyrus communis), cultivated in many varieties in temperate climates; also, the tree which bears this fruit. See Pear family, below.

Pear blight. (a) (Bot.) A name of two distinct diseases of pear trees, both causing a destruction of the branches, viz., that caused by a minute insect ({Xyleborus pyri), and that caused by the freezing of the sap in winter. --A. J. Downing. (b) (Zo["o]l.) A very small beetle ({Xyleborus pyri) whose larv[ae] bore in the twigs of pear trees and cause them to wither.

Pear family (Bot.), a suborder of rosaceous plants ({Pome[ae]), characterized by the calyx tube becoming fleshy in fruit, and, combined with the ovaries, forming a pome. It includes the apple, pear, quince, service berry, and hawthorn.

Pear gauge (Physics), a kind of gauge for measuring the exhaustion of an air-pump receiver; -- so called because consisting in part of a pear-shaped glass vessel.

Pear shell (Zo["o]l.), any marine gastropod shell of the genus Pyrula, native of tropical seas; -- so called from the shape.

Pear slug (Zo["o]l.), the larva of a sawfly which is very injurious to the foliage of the pear tree.

Based on WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003)
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