Also 7–8 in anglicized form tune. [According to Humboldt, taken from Haytian into Spanish: see quot. 1852.] = INDIAN FIG 1, PRICKLY PEAR; esp. Opuntia Tuna, a tall-growing species found in Central America and the West Indies, and introduced elsewhere.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 228. Wyld plantes … which I haue not seene but in the Ilande of Hispaniola…. These they caule Tunas. They growe of a thistle full of thornes, and brynge foorth a frute muche lyke vnto great fygges.
1614. Purchas, Pilgrimage, VIII. vii. (ed. 2), 774. A kind of fruit called Tune, of the bignes of an egge, black and of good tast.
a. 1715. Tate, trans. Cowley’s Plants, V. C.’s Wks. 1721, III. 411. The Tuna to the Indian-Fig a kin, (The Glory of Tlascalla) next came in.
1760–72. trans. Juan & Ulloa’s Voy. (ed. 3), I. 325. The leaf of the tuna being broad, flat, and prickly.
[1852. Th. Ross, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., I. 328. The following are Haytian words, in their real form, which have passed into the Castilian language since the end of the 15th century…. Tuna.]
1866. Treas. Bot., 818. Tuna is a Spanish-American name given to several Opuntias, but botanists have adopted it as the … name of a single species. O. Tuna, a native … from Quito to Mexico and the West Indies.
attrib. 1911. Dundee Advertiser, 12 April, 12/1. San Luis Potosi has long been the great *tuna cheese market of Mexico…. The cheese is made by simply boiling and straining the tuna pulp until the proper consistency is reached.
1748. Earthquake of Peru, iii. 210. These they call Higas de Tuna, or *Tuna Figs.
1912. R. B. C. Graham, in Eng. Rev., May, 229. The great trumpet-shaped and dark red fleshy *tuna flowers.
