Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A large tropical tree (Aleurites moluccana) of Southeast Asia and Oceania, cultivated for its nutlike seeds that can be used as candles and yield a drying oil used in paints, varnishes, lacquer, and soap.
  • noun The seed of this tree.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as candleberry, 1.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The fruit of a euphorbiaceous tree or shrub (Aleurites moluccana), native of some of the Pacific islands. It is used by the natives as a candle, the nut kernels being strung together. The oil from the nut (candlenut oil or kekune oil) has many uses, including as a varnish.
  • noun The tree itself (Aleurites moluccana).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A flowering tree (Aleurites moluccana) of the family Euphorbiaceae, also known as candleberry, Indian walnut, Kemiri, varnish tree or Kukui nut tree.
  • noun The seed of said tree, used as a candle

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun seed of candlenut tree; source of soil used in varnishes
  • noun large tree native to southeastern Asia; the nuts yield oil used in varnishes; nut kernels strung together are used locally as candles

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word candlenut.

Examples

  • It's a unique blend of influences from various regions, "the chef said as he excitedly revealed some ingredients he chose to carry home with him, such as candlenut, bamboo shoots and some sambals.

    The Jakarta Post Breaking News 2009

  • She also introduces us to such exotics as the candlenut (an obscure cousin of the macadamia), galangal (a sweetly pungent relative of ginger) and pandan (an aromatic leaf that lends its distinctive touch to oriental rice).

    The Spice Merchant's Daughter 2008

  • This isn't a trophy, it's the parfait glass with the lit candlenut!

    The Results Haalo 2006

  • At that height a shower of rain falls on nearly every day in the year, and the result is a green sward which England can hardly rival, a perfect sea of verdure, darkened in the valley and more than half way up the hill sides by the foliage of the yellow-blossomed and almost impenetrable hibiscus, brightened here and there by the pea-green candlenut.

    The Hawaiian Archipelago Isabella Lucy 2004

  • The stores and dwellings of the foreign residents are scattered along the shore, and the light frame house, with its green verandah, buried amid gorgeous exotics and shaded by candlenut and breadfruit, looks as seemly and in keeping as in far-off Massachusetts, under hickory and elm.

    The Hawaiian Archipelago Isabella Lucy 2004

  • Their architecture is absolutely unostentatious, and their one beauty is that they are embowered among trailers, shadowed by superb exotics, and surrounded by banks of flowers, while the stately cocoanut, the banana, and the candlenut, the aborigines of Oahu, are nowhere displaced.

    The Hawaiian Archipelago Isabella Lucy 2004

  • First Willie was given the seed of the candlenut tree.

    Willie Nelson, Willie & Shrake, Edwin Bud 1992

  • At the confluence of the Scurge with the Karbashe was Erch, a sleepy village almost hidden in the shade of enormous candlenut trees, where long ago the Tan-chinaros had defeated the Elements.

    Trullion: Alastor 2262 Vance, Jack 1973

  • Rabendary Island comprised about a hundred acres, including a thirty-acre forest of mena, blackwood, candlenut, semprissima.

    Trullion: Alastor 2262 Vance, Jack 1973

  • Archipelago; cuttings of seedless breadfruit and of sugarcane, fleshy roots of taro and yams; even trees, like the Indian almond and the candlenut.

    Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting Washington D.C. September 26, 27 and 28 1923

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.