Bot. Also -iphus (5 -ifus); 8 anglicized ziziph. [late L., ad. Gr. ζίζυφον.] A plant of a large widely distributed genus so named, which comprises spiny shrubs or trees of the buckthorn family, various species of which bear an edible fruit called ZIZYPHA or JUJUBE, q.v.
c. 1440. Pallad. on Husb., VII. 84. Now zizifus in cold lond wole ascende.
1712. trans. Pomet’s Hist. Drugs, I. 134. Jujuba, or Zizipha, a large Fruit of the Ziziph Tree.
1741. J. Martyn, Virg. Georg., II. 84, note. It seems to me more probable that the Lotus of the Lotophagi is what we now call Zisyphus or the Jujube-tree.
1865. Tristram, Land of Israel, xxii. 527. The zizyphus and caper crept higher up the hills.
1882. Floyer, Unexpl. Baluch. 265. We are … still camped under a spreading ziziphus.
attrib. 1890. Daily News, 5 April, 6/1. The Crown of Thorns at Notre Dame is made of plaited reeds, in which ziziphus thorns are intertwined.
