greengage
/ˈɡɹiːnɡeɪd͡ʒ/noun
greengage is a noun meaning “A plum cultivar with greenish-yellow flesh and skin, Prunus domestica subsp. italica var. claudiana” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled G-R-E-E-N-G-A-G-E, and it appears about once in every 39 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of greengage is greengages.
What does greengage mean?
noun
- 1
A plum cultivar with greenish-yellow flesh and skin, Prunus domestica subsp. italica var. claudiana.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce greengage?
- /ˈɡɹiːnɡeɪd͡ʒ/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-greengage.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of greengage
- greengages plural
- green-gage
- green gage
- green-gedge
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is greengage?
Greengage appears about once in every 39 million words in written English, the 191,932nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Greengage in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a plum with greenish-yellow flesh and skin:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | reine-claude |
| German | Reneklode |
| Spanish | claudia |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does greengage come from?
By surface analysis, green + gage. See alternative etymology below, as this is incorrect: the etymology for gage is a back-formation from greengage. alternative etymology The legend goes that Sir William Gage, 2nd Baronet of Hengrave, (c. 1656–1727), had a shipment of plums from France, in which the labels of the reine-claude got lost, by which reason his gardener called it after his master. Horticulturist Peter Collinson reports in his notes edited by L. W.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).