pomegranate

noun

1. The fruit of the Punica granatum, about the size of an orange with a thick, hard, reddish skin enclosing many seeds, each with an edible pink or red pulp tasting both sweet and tart.

   “Here the blue fig with luſcious juice o'erflows, / With deeper red the full pomegranate glows, / The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, / And verdant olives flouriſh round the year.”

   “In the walls of the cells, elevated on seven steps of Parian marble, various statutes stood in niches, and those walls were ornamented with the pomegranate consecrated to Isis.”

   “Another goblet! quick! and stir / Pomegranate juice and drops of myrrh / And calamus therein!”

   “The seeds of the pomegranate, for example, were widely used to prevent conception in the ancient world and they are still used in India, East Africa, and the Pacific.”

   “Persephone is taken to the underworld by Hades to be his queen. She willingly eats a seed of pomegranate and is forced to spend every winter with her husband in the land of the dead, symbolizing the yearly decay and revival of vegetation. […] In Judaism, the number of seeds in a pomegranate is said to be the exact number of mitzvah, or spiritual duties required of a devout Jew.”

2. The shrub or small tree that bears the fruit.

   “I finish'd this day with a walke in the greate garden of the Thuilleries, which is rarely contrived for privacy, shade, or company, by groves, plantations of tall trees, especialy that in yᵉ middle, being of elmes, another of mulberys. There is a labyrinth of cypresse, noble hedges of pomegranates, fountaines, fishponds, and an aviary.”

   “On her fair cheek’s unfading hue, / The young pomegranate’s blossoms strew / Their bloom in blushes ever new— […]”

   “The pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) originates from Persia, and is cultivated in western and central Asia and in the Mediterranean region; it is also grown commercially in California. […] The predominant parasitic nematodes affecting pomegranate are the root knot nematodes, M.^([Meloidogyne]) incognita, M. acrita and M. javanica (McSorley, 1981).”

   “The pomegranate is the tree of knowledge in some myths. In others, it is linked with the underworld,[…].”

   “In this experiment, the average Zn concentration of leaf in four pomegranate cultivars was between 12.0 and 19.8mg/kg in the control (Fig. 2a).”

3. A dark red or orange-red colour, like that of the pulp or skin of a pomegranate fruit.
4. (Australia, colloquial, derogatory, obsolete)A person of British descent, especially one who has (recently) immigrated to Australia; a pom, a pommy.

adj

1. Of a colour like that of the pulp or skin of a pomegranate fruit; dark red or orange-red.

   “Many people would think Miss Wilcox, standing there in her blue merino dress and pomegranate ribbon, a very agreeable woman.”