mandacaru

mandacaru

English

Etymology

From Portuguese mandacaru.

Noun

mandacaru (plural mandacarus)

1. A cactus, Cereus jamacaru, native to central and eastern Brazil.
   • 1984, Helen R. Lane, translating Mario Vargas Llosa, The War of the End of the World, Folio Society 2012, p. 70:

     The thought of vengeance helped him survive the weeks he spent wandering aimlessly about a desert wasteland bristling with mandacarus.

   • 2013, Ardis Stenbakken, Breathe, p. 20:

     But a tree—if I can call it that—that draws my attention is the mandacaru, a columnar cactus native to northeastern Brazil.

   • 2006, Graciliano Ramos, ‘Whale’, in K. David Jackson (ed.), The Oxford Anthology of the Brazilian Short Story, p. 214:

     But the rest of her body shivered, mandacaru cactus thorns penetrated the flesh that had been half-eaten away by the disease.