Forms: 6 calabaza, 7 callebass, 7–8 calabass(e, cali-, callabash, (?) 7–9 calabosh, 8 calobash, callebasse, 8– calabash. [a. F. calebasse, calabace, Cotgr.) ad. Sp. calabaça, calabaza gourd, pumpkin = Cat. carabassa, mod.Pr. carabasso, calebasso, carbasso, Sicil. caravazza. The ultimate source was perh. the Persian kharbuz, or kharbuza, also kharpuza, and kharbūza, ‘melon,’ generally ‘marshmelon,’ occasionally ‘water-melon,’ whence Arabic khirbiz ‘melon,’ and; kirbiz ‘pumpkin, gourd’; also Turk. qārpūz, Albanian and mod. Gr. καρπουζι, καρβουζι; also through Tartar kharpuz, karpus, in Slavonic langs., Serb. karpuza, Pol. † harbuz, † garbuz, † karbuz, arbuz, Little Russ. harbuz, Russ. arbuz (Miklosich). The Pers. word is explained as f. khar large, coarse, and buza, puza, odoriferous fruit. The Sicilian form may be from Arabic; but actual evidence is wanting.]
1. A name given to various gourds or pumpkins, the shell of which is used for holding liquids, etc.
[1596. Raleigh, Disc. Guiana (1887), 32. He also called for his calabaza or gourds of the gold beads. (Though explained as a ‘gourd,’ this was probably the tree calabash, sense 2.)]
1658. Evelyn, Fr. Gard. (1675), 44. Their fruit resembling a gourd or callebass.
a. 1813. A. Wilson, Foresters (1818), 10.
| Where quinces, pears, and clustering grapes were seen, | |
| With ponderous calabashes hung between. |
1866. Livingstone, Jrnl., vii. (1873), I. 181. The manured space is planted with pumpkins and calabashes.
2. The fruit of the Calabash Tree (see 7) of America, the shell of which is used for household utensils, water-bottles, kettles, musical instruments, etc.; it is round or oval, and so hard externally as even to be used in boiling liquids over a fire. Also short for Calabash-tree.
1596. [see 1].
1657. R. Ligon, Barbados, 14. High and loftie trees, as the … Fistula, Calibash, Cherry.
1699. L. Wafer, Voy. (1729), 321. The Calabash grows up and down among the boughs, as our apples do.
1750. G. Hughes, Barbados, 116. The fruit called calabashes are of two sorts.
1828. W. Irving, Columbus, I. 159. The calabashes of the Indians … were produced on stately trees of the size of elms.
3. The hollow shell of either of the preceding, used as a vessel.
1657. R. Ligon, Barbados, 15. With either of them a naturall Pitcher, a Calibash upon their arme.
1681. R. Knox, Hist. Ceylon, 162. Two Calabasses to fetch Water.
1699. Dampier, Voy., II. II. 115. Their Furniture is but mean, viz. Earthen Pots to boil their Maiz in, and abundance of Callabashes.
1746. Lond. Mag., 323. Water presented … in a copious Calabash.
1836. Macgillivray, Humboldt’s Trav., vi. 84. Baling out the water with a calabash.
1866. Engel, Nat. Mus., viii. 285. A stringed instrument of the guitar kind, the body of which was a calabash.
b. This vessel full of anything.
1679. A Paradox (Harl. Misc., 1753), I. 258. They will not give you a Calabash of Milk for it.
1843. Carlyle, Past & Pr. (1858), 234. One small calabash of rice.
1875. Lubbock, Orig. Civilis., vi. 280. They place calabashes of palm wine at the feet of these trees, in case they should be thirsty.
4. A similar vessel or utensil of other material.
1772–84. Cook, Voy. (1790), IV. 1377. Calibashes made of reeds, so closely wrought as to be water-tight.
1851. H. Melville, Moby-Dick, xix. 104. Nothing about the silver calabash he spat into?
5. Sweet Calabash, the edible fruit of Passiflora maliformis.
1840. Penny Cycl., XVII. 304/1. P. maliformis bears what is called the sweet calabash.
1866. Treas. Bot., 851.
6. ‘A humorous name for the head’ Bartlett, Dict. Amer. [Cf. Pg. cabaça = calabaça with cabeça head.]
7. attrib. and Comb., as calabashful; calabash fruit = sense 2; calabash gourd, the bottle-gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris) = sense 1; calabash-nutmeg, Monodora Myristica; calabash-tree, a tree (Crescentia Cujete) native to tropical America and the West Indies, bearing the large oval or globular fruit called Calabash (sense 2); also a name of the Baobab tree.
1707. Sloane, Jamaica, I. p. xvi. Horses feed on *Calabash fruit in dry times.
1824. Burchell, Trav., II. 587. The *calabash gourd is much cultivated for the sake of its shell.
1866. Treas. Bot., II. 752/1. Called … *Calabash Nutmegs from the entire fruit resembling a small calabash.
1737. Miller, Gard. Dict. (ed. 3), The *Calabash-Tree … grows to a considerable Height in the warmer Parts of America, where it produces a very large Fruit.
1796. Stedman, Surinam, II. xx. 115. The gourd or callebasse tree procures them cups.
1816. Keith, Phys. Bot., I. 50.
