overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

calabash.

A tree (known as the calabash tree; Crescentia cujete) native to Central and South America, the West Indies, and southern Florida, bearing large, round fruit used to make containers (sense 3); the fruit of this tree.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkaləbaʃ/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkæləˌbæʃ/General-American
  1. A tree (known as the calabash tree; Crescentia cujete) native to Central and South America, the West Indies, and southern Florida, bearing large, round fruit used to make containers (sense 3); the fruit of this tree.

  2. The bottle gourd (calabash vine, Lagenaria siceraria), believed to have originated in Africa, which is grown for its fruit that are used as a vegetable and to make containers (sense 3); the fruit of this plant.

  3. A container made from the mature, dried shell of the fruit of one of the above plants; also, a similarly shaped container made from some other material.

  4. A calabash and its contents; as much as fills such a container.

  5. A musical instrument, most commonly a drum or rattle, made from a calabash fruit.

  6. The head.

    US · archaic · humorous · slang
Where this word comes from

From French calebasse, from Spanish calabaza (“gourd; pumpkin”), possibly from Arabic قَرْعَةٌ يَابِسَةٌ (qarʕatun yābisatun, “dry gourd”) or directly from its etymon Persian خربزه (xarboze, “melon”), possibly ultimately from Sanskrit त्रपुस (trapusa, “colocynth fruit”) (compare Persian تربزه (tarboze, “watermelon”)). The English word is cognate with Catalan carabassa (“pumpkin; orange colour”), Galician cabaza (“gourd, pumpkin, squash; calabash (container)”), Occitan calebasso, carabasso, carbasso, Portuguese cabaça (“gourd; calabash (container)”), Sicilian caravazza (and caramazza).

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

calabash has 8 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

calabash studiocalabash workshello, calabash

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.