What does "mayapple" mean?

A fruit-bearing flowering plant with poisonous roots, native to eastern North America, taxonomic name Podophyllum peltatum.

What is a synonym for "mayapple"?

Common synonyms include: belladonna, berry, fruit, hemlock, herb, hog apple.

Mayapple

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A fruit-bearing flowering plant with poisonous roots, native to eastern North America, taxonomic name Podophyllum peltatum.
"Etoposide came from the fruit of the poisonous mayapple."
2
North American herb with poisonous root stock and edible though insipid fruit wordnet
3
The fruit of the plant Podophyllum peltatum.

Synonyms

All synonyms

belladonna berry fruit hemlock herb hog apple

Example

More examples

"Etoposide came from the fruit of the poisonous mayapple."

Etymology

From May + apple. The fruit is notably neither related to apples (though "apple" itself has an archaic sense of generically referring to fruit), nor ripens during the month of May; only the flower blooms then around then in certain areas.

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