Meaning

noun a tropical American plant bearing a large fleshy edible fruit with a terminal tuft of stiff leaves; widely cultivated in the tropics

noun large sweet fleshy tropical fruit with a terminal tuft of stiff leaves; widely cultivated

originFrom Middle English pinappel (“pinecone”, literally “pine-apple/pine-fruit”), from Proto-West Germanic *pīnapplu. Later applied to the fruit of the pineapple plant due to its resemblance to a pinecone. Compare the Middle Dutch and Dutch pijnappel (“pinecone", formerly also "pineapple”), Afrikaans pynappel (“pineapple”), Middle Low German pinappel, Old High German pīnapful, Middle High German…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0