Tuesday/ mandarins 橘 and naartjies

Mandarins are indigenous to south east Asia, and sometimes these are given as freebies in the cafeteria where we have lunch.     A closely related fruit of this kind is found in South Africa, where they are called naartjies in Afrikaans, originally from the Tamil word nartei meaning citrus.

This plump little ‘loose-rinded fruit from a spiny orange tree’ as Merriam-Webster describes it (see below), was easy to peel and delicious!

From Merriam-Webster dictionary

man·da·rin

noun ˈman-d(ə-)rən

definition of mandarin

1   a : a public official in the Chinese Empire of any of nine superior grades b (1) : a pedantic official (2) : bureaucrat c : a person of position and influence often in intellectual or literary circles; especially : an elder and often traditionalist or reactionary member of such a circle

2   capitalized a : a form of spoken Chinese used by the court and the official classes of the Empire b : the group of closely related Chinese dialects that are spoken in about four fifths of the country and have a standard variety centering about Beijing

3   [Swedish mandarin (apelsin) mandarin (orange), ultimately from Portuguese mandarim mandarin; perhaps from the color of a mandarin’s robes] a : a small spiny orange tree (Citrus reticulata) of southeastern Asia with yellow to reddish-orange loose-rinded fruits; also : a tree (as the satsuma) developed in cultivation from the mandarin by artificial selection or hybridization b : the fruit of a mandarin

— man·da·rin·ic adjective

— man·da·rin·ism noun

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