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Definition: fig from Philip's Encyclopedia

Tree, shrub, or climber of the mulberry family, growing in warm regions, especially from the E Mediterranean to India and Malaysia. The common fig (Ficus carica) has tiny flowers without petals that grow inside fleshy flask-like receptacles; these become the thick outer covering holding the seeds, the true, edible fruit of the fig tree. Height: to 11.8m (39ft). Family Moraceae, genus Ficus.

fig

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
name for members of the genus Ficus of the family Moraceae ( mulberry family). This large genus contains some 800 species of widely varied tropical vines (some of which are epiphytic); shrubs; and trees, including the banyan, the peepul, or bo tree, and the India-rubber tree. It differs from other genera of the family in that the hundreds of tiny female flowers are borne on the inside of a syconium , a fleshy fruitlike receptacle with a small opening at the apex. The common fig ( F. carica ), a native of the Mediterranean area, has been bred and cultivated from early times for its commercially valuable fruit and has been naturalized in other parts of the world that have a mild, semiarid climate; in the United States, figs are grown in California, Texas, Utah, Oregon, and Washington. Some edible varieties (e.g., the Smyrna, among the best) can be pollinated only by the fig wasp ( Blastophaga ), which passes its larval stage inside the inedible fruit of a wild variety called the…
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Full text Article fig

From Word Origins
English has two words fig. Fig the fruit [13] comes via Old French figue , Provençal figua , and Vulgar Latin *fica from Latin ficus . This, together with its Greek relative súkon (source of English sycamore and sycophant ), came from a pre-Indo-European language of the Mediterranean area, possibly…
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Full text Article fig

From Library of Health and Living: The Encyclopedia of Nutrition and Good Health
Common Fig The common fig is a bush or small tree...
The pear-shaped fruit of the fig tree. The fig is native to southwestern Asia; approximately 700 varieties are now cultivated throughout the Mediterranean area. California is the source of most domestic figs. Red, purple, white, and green figs are the basic types. Figs possess a tough skin and a…
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Full text Article fig

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Any of a group of trees belonging to the mulberry family, including the many cultivated varieties of F. carica , originally from western Asia. They produce two or three crops of fruit a year. Eaten fresh or dried, figs have a high sugar content and laxative properties. (Genus Ficus , family…
| 165 words
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Full text Article fig

From The Oxford Companion to Food
Ficus carica , a fruit with many extraordinary features. The lifecycle of some sorts of fig depends on the efforts made by a tiny insect, the fig wasp, to reproduce itself: efforts which have a pathetic aspect, since they often fail in their main purpose, and lead to the production of more figs…
| 1,383 words
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Full text Article Fig

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Most phrases that include the word have reference to the fruit as being an object of trifling value, but in the phrase ‘in full fig’, meaning ‘in full dress’, the word is a variant of feague , itself from German fegen , ‘to sweep’. The leaf of the fig tree was used by adam and eve to cover their…
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Full text Article fig

From The Deluxe Food Lover's Companion
fig
Originally hailing from southern Europe, Asia, and Africa, figs were thought to be sacred by the ancients; they were also an early symbol of peace and prosperity. Figs were brought to North America by the Spanish Franciscan missionaries who came to set up Catholic missions in southern…
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Full text Article fig

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
name for members of the genus Ficus of the family Moraceae ( mulberry family). This large genus contains some 800 species of widely varied tropical vines (some of which are epiphytic); shrubs; and trees, including the banyan, the peepul, or bo tree, and the India-rubber tree. It differs from other…
| 316 words
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Full text Article Fig Newtons,

From The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets
cookies have been popular ever since...
trademarked by Nabisco, are popular bar cookies made of fig jam encased in cake-like pastry. They are surprisingly similar to the traditional fig rolls and maʾamoul , a sweet composed of shortbread pastry stuffed with figs, nuts, and other dried fruits, still popular today across the Middle East. …
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Full text Article Figes, Eva

From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
Figes is known as an experimental novelist and an author of nonfiction, as well as a translator and children’s book and script writer. She emigrated to England in 1939, from Germany, which accounts for many of the themes in her writing. Her work for adults tends to focus on alienation, female…
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Full text Article fig

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Any plant of the genus Ficus , in the mulberry family , especially Ficus carica , the common fig. Yielding the well-known figs of commerce, F. carica is native to an area from Asiatic Turkey to northern India, but natural seedlings grow in most Mediterranean countries, where figs are used…
| 109 words
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