pagoda tree

English

Etymology

(source of wealth): See pagoda (“a kind of gold coin”).

Noun

pagoda tree (plural pagoda trees)

1. Styphnolobium japonicum, a tree in the pea family Fabaceae.
2. (India, archaic, colloquial) The opportunity to make money rapidly in British India.
   • 1877, Blackwood's Magazine, page 575:

     India has been transferred from the regions of romance to the realms of fact […] the mines of Golconda no longer pay the cost of working, and the pagoda-tree has been stripped of all its golden fruit.

   • 1881 September 3, Saturday Review, page 307:

     It might be mistaken […] for the work of some modern architect, built for the Nabob of a couple of generations back, who had enriched himself when the pagoda-tree was worth the shaking.

Derived terms

• shake the pagoda tree