Definition of "areca" []

• Any of certain tropical Old World palms, such as those in the genera Areca and Chrysalidocarpus. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The areca is a palm of great elegance; it rises to a height of about eighty feet, and a rich feathery crest adorns the summit."
• "News at Eleven: These poems by Samuel Beckett need to be read three-dimensionally: that is, turned slowly until the variety of each poem's facets bring pleasure, if not always sense: "grave suave singing silk/stoop to the black firmament of areca/rain on the bamboos flowers of smoke alley of willows"--"areca" being a palm producing astringent nuts excremental activity is a Beckett motif."
• "Then you take chopped up betel nut (or areca nut, which is similar to nutmeg in hardness and texture) and fold the leaf over the the ingredients."