Meaning & use
Chinese apricot
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A small, soft, orange-yellow fruit with a stone, grown mainly in China and eaten fresh or dried.
Grammar: Countable: one fruit is a Chinese apricot, several are Chinese apricots.
Patterns
- a Chinese apricot
- Chinese apricots
- a bag of dried Chinese apricots
She bought a box of Chinese apricots at the market.
These Chinese apricots are sweeter than the ones we grow here.
Dried Chinese apricots make a good snack on a long walk.
nouncountable
The tree that produces this fruit, often grown for its blossom as well as its crop.
Grammar: Countable when talking about individual trees: a Chinese apricot, two Chinese apricots.
Patterns
- plant a Chinese apricot
- a Chinese apricot tree
- grow Chinese apricots
They planted a Chinese apricot beside the wall.
The Chinese apricot in our garden flowers very early.
Chinese apricots need a cold winter to fruit well.
Word forms
| plural | Chinese apricots |
|---|
Common combinations
- dried Chinese apricots
- He always keeps dried Chinese apricots in his desk.
- Chinese apricot tree
- The Chinese apricot tree lost all its leaves in the storm.
- a crop of Chinese apricots
- The farm had a poor crop of Chinese apricots this year.
- Chinese apricot jam
- She spread Chinese apricot jam on her toast.
Synonyms and how they differ
- apricot
- Use the shorter word when the country of origin does not matter; the full name is more specific.
- mume
- A specialist Japanese name for a closely related fruit; it is rare in everyday English.
Word family
- apricot noun
- The general fruit of the same kind, without naming a country.
Commonly confused: Chinese apricot or peach?
Chinese apricot vs peach
A peach is larger, softer and usually has a fuzzy skin; a Chinese apricot is smaller, firmer and often eaten dried.
Practice
Which sentence uses the noun correctly?
Choose one answer.
The noun is countable, so the plural adds -s: Chinese apricots. Option 1 keeps the singular, option 2 adds the wrong ending, and option 3 wrongly uses a possessive.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Chinese apricot”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.