eggplant

• egg-plant

egg +‎ plant, originally applied only to the white-colored variety.

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

eggplant (countable and uncountable, plural eggplants) (Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand)

1. (Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand) The plant Solanum melongena.
2. (Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand) The edible fruit of the Solanum melongena: an aubergine.
3. (Canada, US) A dark purple color, like that of the skin of this fruit.

   eggplant colour:  

4. (US, slang, derogatory, offensive) A black person (used mainly by Italian-Americans).
   • 2004, Wendy Coakley-Thompson, Back to Life:

     "Why am I not surprised?" This was the limit. "You know, I'm black enough for his family to yell eggplant-this and nigger-that at me," she said.

   • 2006, Jerome Charyn, Raised by wolves: the turbulent art and times of Quentin Tarantino

     What else can he do? But Hopper continues his riff. "Sicilians still carry that nigger gene . . . Your ancestors are niggers. You're part eggplant."

5. (snowboarding) A 180 backside rotated invert in which the front hand is planted on the lip of the halfpipe wall

• (the plant or its fruit): aubergine (UK), brinjal (India, Malaysia), baingan (India), brown jolly (Caribbean, dated)
• (the fruit): melongene (Caribbean)

• Eggplant mosaic virus

• eggplant on Wikipedia.Wikipedia