sycamore

American sycamore

Platanus occidentalis

syc·a·more

(sĭk′ə-môr′)

1. Any of various deciduous trees of the genus Platanus, especially P. occidentalis of eastern North America, having palmately lobed leaves, ball-like, nodding, hairy fruit clusters, and bark that flakes off in large pieces. Also called buttonball, buttonwood.

2. A Eurasian deciduous maple tree (Acer pseudoplatanus) having palmately lobed leaves, winged fruits, and greenish flowers.

3. A fig tree (Ficus sycomorus) of Africa and adjacent southwest Asia, mentioned in the Bible, having clusters of figs borne on short leafless twigs.

[Middle English sicamour, a kind of fig tree, from Old French sicamor, from Latin sȳcomorus, from Greek sūkomoros, perhaps of Semitic origin; see qwm in Semitic roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sycamore

(ˈsɪkəˌmɔː)

1. (Plants) a Eurasian maple tree, Acer pseudoplatanus, naturalized in Britain and North America, having five-lobed leaves, yellow flowers, and two-winged fruits

2. (Plants) US and Canadian an American plane tree, Platanus occidentalis. See plane tree

3. (Plants) Also: sycomore a moraceous tree, Ficus sycomorus, of N Africa and W Asia, having an edible figlike fruit

[C14: from Old French sicamor, from Latin sӯcomorus, from Greek sukomoros, from sukon fig + moron mulberry]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

syc•a•more

(ˈsɪk əˌmɔr, -ˌmoʊr)

n.

1. Also called buttonwood. any plane tree, esp. Platanus occidentalis, of E North America, having palmately lobed leaves, globular seed heads, and wood valued as timber.

2. Brit. the sycamore maple.

3. a tree, Ficus sycomorus, of the Near East, related to the common fig, bearing an edible fruit: the sycamore of the Bible.

[1300–50; < Old French < Latin sȳcomorus < Greek sȳkómoros < Semitic; compare Hebrew shiqmāh sycamore]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	sycamore - variably colored and sometimes variegated hard tough elastic wood of a sycamore tree lacewood plane tree, platan, sycamore - any of several trees of the genus Platanus having thin pale bark that scales off in small plates and lobed leaves and ball-shaped heads of fruits wood - the hard fibrous lignified substance under the bark of trees
	2.	sycamore - any of several trees of the genus Platanus having thin pale bark that scales off in small plates and lobed leaves and ball-shaped heads of fruits plane tree, platan genus Platanus, Platanus - genus of large monoecious mostly deciduous trees: London plane; sycamore lacewood, sycamore - variably colored and sometimes variegated hard tough elastic wood of a sycamore tree London plane, Platanus acerifolia - very large fast-growing tree much planted as a street tree American plane, American sycamore, buttonwood, Platanus occidentalis - very large spreading plane tree of eastern and central North America to Mexico oriental plane, Platanus orientalis - large tree of southeastern Europe to Asia Minor California sycamore, Platanus racemosa - tall tree of Baja California having deciduous bark and large alternate palmately lobed leaves and ball-shaped clusters of flowers Arizona sycamore, Platanus wrightii - medium-sized tree of Arizona and adjacent regions having deeply lobed leaves and collective fruits in groups of 3 to 5 tree - a tall perennial woody plant having a main trunk and branches forming a distinct elevated crown; includes both gymnosperms and angiosperms
	3.	sycamore - Eurasian maple tree with pale grey bark that peels in flakes like that of a sycamore tree; leaves with five ovate lobes yellow in autumn Acer pseudoplatanus, great maple, scottish maple maple - any of numerous trees or shrubs of the genus Acer bearing winged seeds in pairs; north temperate zone
	4.	sycamore - thick-branched wide-spreading tree of Africa and adjacent southwestern Asia often buttressed with branches rising from near the ground; produces cluster of edible but inferior figs on short leafless twigs; the biblical sycamore Ficus sycomorus, mulberry fig, sycamore fig Ficus, genus Ficus - large genus of tropical trees or shrubs or climbers including fig trees fig tree - any moraceous tree of the tropical genus Ficus; produces a closed pear-shaped receptacle that becomes fleshy and edible when mature

Translations

Bergahorn

arce blanco arce sicomoro blada falso plátano higuera africana

platane sycomore

sicomoro

sycamore

[ˈsɪkəmɔːʳ] N (also sycamore tree) → sicomoro m, sicómoro m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

sycamore

[ˈsɪkəmɔː^r] n (also sycamore tree) → sycomore m

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

sycamore

n → Bergahorn m; (US: = plane tree) → nordamerikanische Platane; (= wood) → Ahorn m

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

sycamore

[ˈsɪkəmɔːʳ] n → sicomoro

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Slowly, silently we wandered From the open cottage door, Underneath the elm's long branches To the pavement bending o'er; Underneath the mossy willow And the dying sycamore.

Now, to me the elm-leaves whisper Mad, discordant melodies, And keen melodies like shadows Haunt the moaning willow trees, And the sycamores with laughter Mock me in the nightly breeze.

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Various water-courses filter through, toward the east, and work their way onward to flow into the Kingani, in the midst of gigantic clumps of sycamore, tamarind, calabash, and palmyra trees.

The doctor went nearer to the ground; the anchors were thrown out, and one of them soon caught in the boughs of a huge sycamore.

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Boxtel, hidden behind his sycamore, could not see anything, as it was pitch-dark; but the piercing cries of the cats told the whole tale, and his heart overflowing with gall now throbbed with triumphant joy.

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She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree.

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He picked up and inspected several large semi-cylinders of the thin white bark of a sycamore, and finally chose two which seemed to suit him.

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Soon, as the road turned, the Chateau de la Valliere appeared in view; then, a quarter of a mile beyond, a white house, encircled in sycamores, was visible at the farther end of a group of trees, which spring had powdered with a snow of flowers.

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That afterglow has long faded away; and the picture we are apt to make of Methodism in our imagination is not an amphitheatre of green hills, or the deep shade of broad-leaved sycamores, where a crowd of rough men and weary-hearted women drank in a faith which was a rudimentary culture, which linked their thoughts with the past, lifted their imagination above the sordid details of their own narrow lives, and suffused their souls with the sense of a pitying, loving, infinite Presence, sweet as summer to the houseless needy.

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Said he would wait for us in a little bunch of sycamores right back of Tom's uncle Silas's tobacker field on the river road, a lonesome place.

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"Bricks," he whispered, very low--"old yellow bricks, crumbling with age in a garden- wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove- cote--or perhaps a granary--with the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a bureau- drawer of walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses' drinking-trough beneath the sycamores; little mushrooms bursting through the rotting leaves; and--and--and--"

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The chapel, thus rebuilt, transported, was pleasing to the eye beneath its leafy curtains of poplars and sycamores. It was ministered in every Sunday, by the cure of the neighboring bourg, to whom Athos paid an allowance of two hundred francs for this service; and all the vassals of his domain, with their families, came thither to hear mass, without having any occasion to go to the city.

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