mango

Etymology

Borrowed from Portuguese manga, from Malayalam മാങ്ങ (māṅṅa) ultimately from Proto Dravidian (reconstructed Proto-Dravidian *mām-kāy (“unripe mango”), a compound of *mām (“mango tree”) + *kāy (“unripe fruit”)). First used for the fruit as early as the 1580s and the tree by the 1670s. The Oxford English Dictionary says it ultimately stems from Malayalam മാങ്ങ (māṅṅa, “unripe mango”) (മാവ് (māvŭ, “mango tree”) + കായ (kāya, “unripe fruit”)), while the Online Etymology Dictionary points to Tamil மாங்காய் (māṅkāy, “unripe mango”) (மா (mā, “mango”) + காய் (kāy, “unripe fruit”)). The etymology of the -o ending is not certain.

noun

1. A tropical Asian fruit tree, Mangifera indica.
   On the hot days, he would lie in the shade of a mango and let little Eugenia clamber over his belly and tug at his beard. 1980, Bruce Chatwin, The Viceroy of Ouidah, page 146
2. The fruit of the mango tree.
   And I have one [bezoar] form'd round the Stone of that great Plum, which comes pickled from thence, and is called Mango. 1738, October–November, Hans Sloan, Philosophical Transactions, volume 40, number 450, “VI. his Answer to the Marquis de Caumont's Letter, concerning this Stone”, translated from the Latin by Thomas Stack, Royal Society (1741), page 376
3. A pickled vegetable or fruit with a spicy stuffing; a vegetable or fruit which has been mangoed.
   In Pennsylvania and western Maryland, mangoes were generally made with green bell peppers. 2004, Elizabeth E. Lea, William Woys Weaver, A Quaker Woman's Cookbook: The Domestic Cookery of Elizabeth Ellicott Lea, page 335
4. (US, chiefly southern Midwestern US, dated) A green bell pepper suitable for pickling.
   Mango peppers by the dozen, if owned by the careful housewife, would gladden the appetite or disposition of any epicure or scold. 1879, Pennsylvania State Board of Agriculture, Agriculture of Pennsylvania, page 222
   Best mango peppers 1896, Ohio State Board of Agriculture, Annual Report, page 154
   Cut tops from mangoes; remove seeds. August 9 1943, Mary Adgate, “Stuffed Mangoes”, in The Lima News, Lima, Ohio, page 5
   Finally, although both the South and North Midlands are not known for their tropical climate, that's where mangoes grow. These aren't the tropical fruit, though, but what are elsewhere called green peppers. 2000, Allan A. Metcalf, How We Talk: American Regional English Today, page 41
5. A type of muskmelon, Cucumis melo.
6. Any of various hummingbirds of the genus Anthracothorax.
7. A yellow-orange color, like that of mango flesh.
   mango:
8. (in the plural, slang) The breasts.

verb

1. (uncommon) To stuff and pickle (a fruit).
   Although any melon may be used before it is quite ripe, yet there is a particular sort for this purpose, which the gardeners know, and should be mangoed soon after they are gathered. 1870, Hannah Mary Peterson, The Young Wife's Cook Book, page 444
   In an effort to reproduce the pickle, English cooks took to "mangoing" all sorts of substitutes, from cucumbers to unripe peaches. Americans, however, preferred baby musk melons, or, in areas where they did not grow well, bell peppers. 1989, William Woys Weaver, America eats: forms of edible folk art
   For this cookbook, I made mangoed peppers that were not stuffed with cabbage, but stuffed with green and red tomatoes and onions. 2008, Beverly Ellen Schoonmaker Alfeld, Pickles To Relish, page 66