banana

Etymology

From Wolof banaana, via Spanish or Portuguese, of unknown origin, but potentially from Arabic بَنَان (banān, “fingertip”). The racial slur derives from the notion that they are "yellow (East Asian) on the outside, white (Westernized) on the inside".

noun

1. An elongated curved tropical fruit of a banana plant, which grows in bunches and has a creamy flesh and a smooth skin.
   1. (Canada, US, UK, Ireland) In particular, the sweet, yellow fruit of the Cavendish banana cultivar, which may be eaten raw, as distinct from e.g. a plantain for cooking.
2. The tropical tree-like plant which bears clusters of bananas, a plant of the genus Musa (but sometimes also including plants from Ensete), which has large, elongated leaves.
3. (uncountable) A yellow colour, like that of a banana's skin.
   banana:
4. (derogatory, ethnic slur) A person of East Asian descent, especially an ethnic Chinese from a Western country who does not speak Chinese, considered to be overly assimilated and subservient to White authority.
5. (slang) The penis.
   The fact that the cop bought O'Brien a beer after feeling of his banana suggests that it must have been a promising one 1986, Christopher Street, Cop Feels of Three Men's "Privates", volume 10
   His you-know-what turned soft .. his eight o'clock class was the last thing on his mind five minutes ago, when his banana wasn't overripe. 2012, Sarah Miynowski, Fishbowl, page 36
   Most of the gang were trying their best to shag the girls. One boy was sitting in a tree playing with himself and another was asking a table of teenagers if they would like to see his banana. 2014, Anthony Bunko, Lord Forgive Me, page 71
   He adds that after eating his banana (sucking his penis), he wants anal sex, but she asks him to lick her pussy. Then he tells her no because it is disgusting. 2017, Intimate Relationships in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture, page 234
6. (sports) A banana kick.
7. (nuclear physics) A banana equivalent dose.
8. (computer science, colloquial) A catamorphism (from the use of banana brackets in the notation).

adj

1. Curved like a banana, especially of a ball in flight.
   Even the lowly banana ball, the bane of so many weekenders, sometimes can be exactly right, as in this case. 2001, Rayne Barton, The Green Hills Golf Chronicles, page 155
   He played the fading, low-banana shot as planned, and the ball whistled left of the oak tree and between the pines. 2002, Andrew Collins, Guild of Honor, page 53
   …Bernd Schneider closed the scoring in injury-time with a 23 meter free-kick banana shot into the upper-right corner. 2006, Richard Witzig, The Global Art of Soccer, page 247