piñon pine

English

Etymology

From Spanish piñón.

Noun

piñon pine (countable and uncountable, plural piñon pines)

1. (uncountable, countable) Any of several species of North American pines in Pinus subsect. Cembroides that bear edible seeds (pine nuts), especially Pinus edulis; the nut pine.
   • 1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 5, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC:

     The sage and thickets of oak and brakes of alder gave place to piñon pine growing out of rocky soil.

   • 1986, John McPhee, Rising from the Plains; reprinted in Annals of the Former World, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998, page 383:

     Love said he liked this place because he could see so much from it, and had stopped here many times across the decades, to lean against a piñon pine and sort through the country, like an astronomer with the whole sky above him sorting through the stars.

   • 2001, Eric Nylund, Halo: The Fall of Reach, New York: Del Rey, →ISBN, page 217:

     He inhaled deeply, smelling piñon pines and sage.

Synonyms

• (North American pines): piñon, pinon, pinyon

Translations

North American pine producing edible seeds

• Panamint: wahappin