rambutan

noun

Etymology: Borrowed from Malay rambutan, English usage first attested 1707.

1. A tree of species Nephelium lappaceum, of Southeast Asia.
2. The edible fruit of this tree.

   “The Mangosteen, Lansat, Rambutan, Jack, Jambou, and Blimbing, are all abundant; but most abundant and most esteemed is the Durian, a fruit about which very little is known in England, but which both by natives and Europeans in the Malay Archipelago is reckoned superior to all others.”

   “Old women crouched over bags of Siamese rice, skeps of red and green peppers, purple egg-plants, bristly rambutans, pineapples, durians.”