Lychee
/ˈlaɪ.tʃiː/noun
A tropical fruit with sweet white flesh and a rough red shell.
Did you know?The English word comes through Cantonese from a Chinese term for the fruit, and the same root also gave us the name of the related fruit longan in some older transliterations.
Etymological Timeline
Ancient Chinese
Chinese
荔枝
“The lychee fruit”
Late Imperial Chinese
Chinese
lìzhī
“Chinese pronunciation of the fruit name”
18th Century
French
litchi
“Transliterated form used in European writing”
19th Century
English
lychee
“English spelling adopted from earlier European transliterations”
Modern English
English
lychee
“A tropical fruit”