Abaca

//ˈæb.əˌkɑː// name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Musa textilis, a species of banana tree native to the Philippines grown for its textile, rope- and papermaking fibre. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    Philippine banana tree having leafstalks that yield Manila hemp used for rope and paper etc wordnet
  3. 3
    The fiber of this plant, used in rope, fibers, and cloth. uncountable
  4. 4
    a kind of hemp obtained from the abaca plant in the Philippines wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A barangay of Dagami, Leyte, Philippines.

Synonyms

All synonyms
manila hempmanilla hempmanila hempmusa textilistextile banana

Example

More examples

""Manila hemp", as it is so commonly called, is not really hemp at all, but a plant closely related to the banana and so strongly resembling it that some persons are unable to tell the difference. The correct name for this is abaca, and it is probably the most important crop produced in the Philippine Islands."

Etymology

From Spanish abacá, from Tagalog abaka.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.