banana

The word “banana” means a long curved tropical fruit with soft flesh and a peelable yellow skin. In plain terms, the common yellow tropical fruit, or the plant that grows it.

“Banana” is pronounced buh-NAH-nuh (/bəˈnæ.nə/ in IPA).

Here is “banana” used in a sentence: “She sliced a banana into her cereal.”

“Banana” is a noun.

The word “banana” comes from Spanish. Borrowed via Portuguese and Spanish from a West African language, possibly Wolof; the exact origin is debated.

“Banana” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A1 level.

“Banana” has 2 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: a long curved tropical fruit with soft flesh and a peelable yellow skin.

Both. In everyday language a banana is a long curved tropical fruit, and in botanical terms it is classified as a berry because it develops from a single flower with one ovary. So "fruit" is correct in ordinary usage and "berry" is correct scientifically.

No. Although banana plants grow tall and look like trees, the "trunk" is actually a pseudostem made of tightly packed leaf bases, so botanists class the banana as a large herbaceous plant. Calling it a banana tree is common and perfectly acceptable in casual speech.

Plantains are starchier, less sweet relatives of the dessert banana and are usually cooked before eating, while bananas are typically eaten raw when ripe. The two look similar, but plantains tend to be larger and thicker-skinned. In some regions the names are used interchangeably for cooking varieties.