# mesquite
## English
### Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish mezquite, mizquite, from Nahuatl mizquitl (“mesquite tree”).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /mɛsˈkiːt/, /ˈmɛskiːt/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Hyphenation: mes‧quite

### Noun

mesquite (plural mesquites)
* Any of several deciduous trees of the genus Prosopis found in America, and used as forage, which have long, beige seed/bean pods which may be dried and ground into a sweet, nutty flour.
** 1895, J[ohn] W[esley] Powell, chapter I, in Canyons of the Colorado, Meadville, PA: Flood & Vincent; republished as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, New York: Dover, 1961, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 20:Between these canyons the river has a low but rather narrow flood plain, with cottonwood groves scattered here and there, and a chaparral of mesquite bearing beans and thorns.
** 1909, Volney Morgan Spalding, Distribution and movements of desert plants‎:[…] and no botanist could for a moment fail to recognize this fact, especially as just beyond its banks there is growing on every hand the mesquite, the everywhere-present species of the Lower Sonoran zone.
* The wood of these trees, used for smoking food, or charcoal made from this wood.
* Country or land dominated by mesquite trees.
** 1957, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC:Tucson is situated in beautiful mesquite riverbed country, overlooked by the snowy Catalina range.
** 1900, David Prescott Barrows, The ethno-botany of the Coahuilla Indians of Southern California‎:Southward and in the very center of the plain is La Mesa, hidden in the mesquite and with splendid, typically dug, wells.

#### Derived terms

* curly mesquite (Hilaria)
* false mesquite (Calliandra eriophylla)
* giant mesquite bug (Thasus neocalifornicus)
* honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa)
* mesquite bean
* mesquite bush (Prosopis spp.)
* mesquite flour
* mesquite gall midge (Asphondylia prosopidis)
* mesquite grass (Bouteloua spp.)
* mesquite gum
* mesquite lizard (Sceloporus grammicus)
* mesquite looper moth (Rindgea cyda)
* mesquite mistletoe (Phoradendron californicum)
* mesquite mouse (Peromyscus merriami)
* mesquite stinger moth (Norape tener)
* mesquite webworm moth (Friseria cockerelli)
* screwbean mesquite (Prosopis pubescens)
* screw pod mesquite
* screw-pod mesquite (Prosopis pubescens)
* vine mesquite (Panicum obtusum)

#### Translations
### References

* mesquite on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* Prosopis on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
* Category:Prosopis on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

## Portuguese
### Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish mezquite from Nahuatl mizquitl (“mesquite tree”).

### Pronunciation

* (Brazil) IPA: /mesˈki.t͡ʃi/
* (Brazil) IPA: /mesˈki.t͡ʃi/
** (Rio de Janeiro) IPA: /meʃˈki.t͡ʃi/
** (Southern Brazil) IPA: /mesˈki.te/
* (Portugal) IPA: /mɨʃˈki.tɨ/
* Hyphenation: mes‧qui‧te

### Noun

mesquite f (plural mesquites)
* mesquite (any of the North-American deciduous trees of the genus Prosopis)

## Spanish
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /mesˈkite/ [mesˈki.t̪e]
* Rhymes: -ite
* Syllabification: mes‧qui‧te
* Homophone: (Latin America) mezquite

### Noun

mesquite m (plural mesquites)
* (Mexico) Alternative spelling of mezquite

### Further reading

* “mesquite”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10