plum
good, desirable
TRANSLATION
plum = (adj.) wünschenswert, Wunsch- plum = (noun) die Pflaume --- GOOGLE INDEX plum: approximately 100,000,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
France gets PLUM JOB in new EU diplomatic service
(BBC News)
---
China, US eye region's PLUM PRIZE, Indonesia
(New York Times)
(BBC News)
---
China, US eye region's PLUM PRIZE, Indonesia
(New York Times)
Did you
know?
plum
adjective
- very good and worth having
noun
- something desirable and worth having
- a small, round fruit
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
---
To understand the origin of the adjective "plum", we first have to talk about fruit. Plum is a tree in the Prunus family that produces a small round fruit with a thin smooth red, purple or yellow skin, sweet soft flesh, and a single large hard seed. The name stems from the Old English "plume" and the Latin "prunum".
The plum is a juicy, sweet-tasting fruit that can be eaten fresh or used in jam-making or other recipes. Plum juice can be fermented into plum wine. An Eastern European brandy known as Slivovitz (among other names) is made from plums. In central England, a cider-like alcoholic beverage known as plum jerkum is also made from plums.
One of the more common uses of plums is in pudding, also known as Christmas pudding, which is traditionally served on Christmas day. It has a distinctively sweet taste that stems from dark sugars (thus the dark colour of the pudding). Because of its popularity and status as a special treat, the word plum eventually evolved into an adjective to describe anything good or sought-after.
This could be a plum prize as an example, although this a redundant phrase because a prize is something desirable in and of itself. Plum can also be used to describe a very desirable job (He got a plum job in the banking industry) or a much sought-after theatre role for example (The director gave her the plum role of Lady Macbeth).
---
SYNONYMS
asset, bonus, carrot, catch, cream, dividend, find, nugget, pick, premium, treasure
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"He got a plum assignment to cover the 2012 Summer Olympics for the newspaper."
adjective
- very good and worth having
noun
- something desirable and worth having
- a small, round fruit
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
---
To understand the origin of the adjective "plum", we first have to talk about fruit. Plum is a tree in the Prunus family that produces a small round fruit with a thin smooth red, purple or yellow skin, sweet soft flesh, and a single large hard seed. The name stems from the Old English "plume" and the Latin "prunum".
The plum is a juicy, sweet-tasting fruit that can be eaten fresh or used in jam-making or other recipes. Plum juice can be fermented into plum wine. An Eastern European brandy known as Slivovitz (among other names) is made from plums. In central England, a cider-like alcoholic beverage known as plum jerkum is also made from plums.
One of the more common uses of plums is in pudding, also known as Christmas pudding, which is traditionally served on Christmas day. It has a distinctively sweet taste that stems from dark sugars (thus the dark colour of the pudding). Because of its popularity and status as a special treat, the word plum eventually evolved into an adjective to describe anything good or sought-after.
This could be a plum prize as an example, although this a redundant phrase because a prize is something desirable in and of itself. Plum can also be used to describe a very desirable job (He got a plum job in the banking industry) or a much sought-after theatre role for example (The director gave her the plum role of Lady Macbeth).
---
SYNONYMS
asset, bonus, carrot, catch, cream, dividend, find, nugget, pick, premium, treasure
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"He got a plum assignment to cover the 2012 Summer Olympics for the newspaper."
