E. Ind. Also jamboo, jambos, jumboo. [Various vernacular forms repr. Skr. jambu, jambū ‘rose-apple,’ and its derivatives jambula, jambūla, etc.] A name given in different parts of the East Indies and Malay Archipelago to several species of Eugenia (N.O. Myrtaceæ), and their fruits; esp.
a. Eugenia Jambos (Jambosa vulgaris), the Rose Apple.
1598. trans. Linschoten’s Voy., I. (Hakluyt Soc.), II. 29, 30 (Stanf.). Of Iambos. In India ther is another fruit that for the beautie, pleasant taste, smell, and medicinable vertue thereof, is worthie to bee written of…. The Iambos tree taketh deepe roote.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 505. The Iambos … smelleth like a Rose, is ruddie; and the tree is never without fruit or blossomes.
1775. Masson, in Phil. Trans., LXVI. 270. No Indian fruits, except the guyava and jambo.
1851. Illustr. Catal. Gt. Exhib., 1319. Jambo, Rose apple (Eugenia jambos).
b. Eugenia Jambolana, the Java Plum, also called JAMBOLAN and JAMAN.
1835. Burnes, Trav. Bokhara (ed. 2), II. 36. They consisted of the peach,… mango, jamboo, bair, date,… and apple.
1866. Livingstone, Jrnl. (1873), I. vii. 172. We got some wretched wild fruit like that called ‘jambos,’ in India.
1879. Sir E. Arnold, Lt. Asia, VI. (1881), 143. The books Tell how jambu-branches, planted thus Shoot with quick life in wealth of leaf and flower.
c. Eugenia malaccensis, the Malay Apple, and kindred species, native to the Malay archipelago.
1727. A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Ind., I. xxi. 255. Their Jambo Malacca is very beautiful and pleasant.
1772–84. Cook, Voy. (1790), I. 280. The jamboo is a fruit that has but little taste, but is of a cooling nature: it is considerably less than a common-sized apple,… its shape is oval, and its colour a deep red.
1788. G. Keate, Pelew Isl., 257, note. It is the Jamboo Apple, the Eugenia Malaccensis of Linnæus.
1812. Maria Graham, Jrnl. Resid. India (1813), 22 (Y.). The jumboo, a species of rose-apple, with its flowers, like crimson tassels, covering every part of the stem.
1883. Mrs. Bishop, Sk. Malay Pen., v. in Leisure Ho., 198/2. Clusters of a species of jambu, a pear-shaped fruit.
So ǁ Jambol, jambul [Skr. jambula, jambūla: see JAMBO]; also Jambolan = JAMBO b.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 505. But of these, also the Carambolas, Iambolijns and other Indian fruits, I leave to speake.
1866. Treas. Bot., 634/2. Jambolan-tree, Calyptrantes Jambolana.
1880. C. R. Markham, Peruv. Bark, 382. By the roadside … there were roses, daturas, and jambol-trees (Eugenia Jambolanum) with heads of graceful flowers.
1887. Syd. Soc. Lex., Jambul, the Syzygium jambolanum.
