pitanga

Borrowed from Brazilian Portuguese pitanga, from Old Tupi 'ybapytanga.

pitanga (plural pitangas)

1. A Eugenia uniflora tree or its fruit.

   Synonyms: Brazilian cherry, Cayenne cherry, pitangueira, Surinam cherry, Suriname cherry

   • 1905, Natal Agriculture Journal, page 445:

     The first maggots were found in pitangas (Brazilian cherries) on the third day after our arrival, but the quantity was of no value, and it was impossible to say whether they were parisitized.

   • 1960, Ann M. Perry, Dooryard Supermarket in the Tropics & Subtropics: Its Development and Instructions for Fabrication and Use of Its Products:

     Immature pitangas have a disagreeable resinous taste. […] The Surinam cherry is essentially a dessert fruit. The fresh fruits are eaten out of hand or made into jellies, jams, sherbert, sauce and beverages.

Inherited from Old Tupi pitanga.

• mitanga

• IPA^(key): /piˈtã.ɡa/, (Solimões) [piˈtã.ᵑɡɐ]
• Rhymes: -ãɡa
• Hyphenation: pi‧tan‧ga

pitanga (plural pitanga-itá)

1. (obsolete) baby; toddler

   Synonym: tainá-piranga

Inherited from Old Tupi pytanga.

• IPA^(key): /piˈtã.ɡa/, (Solimões) [pɨˈtã.ᵑɡɐ]
• Rhymes: -ãɡa
• Hyphenation: pi‧tan‧ga

pitanga

1. (obsolete, only used in compounds) pastel; pastelly (having a light and low-intensity shade)

The Old Tupi color names pytanga and piranga merged into one in Nheengatu, with existing compounds getting changed to the second. Very few words still have pitanga and are seen as archaic in Nheengatu.

• Avila, Marcel Twardowsky (2021), “pitanga”, in Proposta de dicionário nheengatu-português [Nheengatu–Portuguese dictionary proposal] (in Portuguese), São Paulo: USP, →DOI, page 618

• mitanga (Língua Geral Paulista)

Inherited from Proto-Tupi-Guarani *pitaŋ.^[1][2] By surface analysis, pira (“skin”) +‎ tang (“tender”) +‎ -a (nominal suffix), literally “tender skin”.^[3]

pitanga (possessable)

1. child
2. baby; fetus

• Nheengatu: pitanga

• anonymous author (1622), “Criança. infans”, in Vocabulario na lingoa Braſilica (overall work in Portuguese), Piratininga; republished as Carlos Drummond, editor, Vocabulário na Língua Brasílica, 2nd edition, volume 1, São Paulo: USP, 1953, page 86: “Pitãga”
• anonymous author (1622), “Jnocente, Infans”, in Vocabulario na lingoa Braſilica (overall work in Portuguese), Piratininga; republished as Carlos Drummond, editor, Vocabulário na Língua Brasílica, 2nd edition, volume 2, São Paulo: USP, 1953, page 12: “Pitãga”
• anonymous author (1622), “Minina ou minino. Infans”, in Vocabulario na lingoa Braſilica (overall work in Portuguese), Piratininga; republished as Carlos Drummond, editor, Vocabulário na Língua Brasílica, 2nd edition, volume 2, São Paulo: USP, 1953, page 38: “Pitanga”
• Georg Marcgrave, Willem Piso (1648), Historia Naturalis Brasiliae [Brazilian Natural History], Rerum Naturalium Historiae, book VIII, chapter IX (overall work in Latin), Amsterdam: Elzevir, page 276: “Pitanga”

• Navarro, Eduardo de Almeida (2013), “pitanga”, in Dicionário de tupi antigo: a língua indígena clássica do Brasil [Dictionary of Old Tupi: The Classical Indigenous Language of Brazil ] (overall work in Portuguese), São Paulo: Global, →ISBN, page 389, column 1

Ellipsis of Old Tupi 'ybapytanga.

• Rhymes: -ɐ̃ɡɐ
• Hyphenation: pi‧tan‧ga
• Homophone: Pitanga

pitanga f (plural pitangas)

1. (Brazil) Suriname cherry (fruit of the Eugenia uniflora tree)

• → English: pitanga
• → Hunsrik: Pitange, Pitangebaam

• “pitanga”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “pitanga”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

• IPA^(key): /piˈtanɡa/ [piˈt̪ãŋ.ɡa]
• Rhymes: -anɡa
• Syllabification: pi‧tan‧ga

pitanga f (plural pitangas)

1. pitanga

   Synonym: ñangapirí

• “pitanga”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025