Definition of "medlar" [med•lar]

• A deciduous European tree (Mespilus germanica) having white flowers and edible apple-shaped fruit. (noun)
• The fruit of this plant, eaten fresh or made into preserves. (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.

• "His face was wrinkled and brown, like the exterior of that incomprehensible fruit the medlar, which is never ripe till it is bad, and then it is to be avoided."
• "Three-course lunch/dinner for two with wine, about £90/£130 including 12.5 per cent service A medlar is a fruit that requires "bletting" to become edible."
• "One of our men had got us a bag full of fruit, -- limes, zapotes, and nisperos, which last are a large kind of medlar, besides a number of other kinds of fruit, which we ate without knowing what they were."