piñon

• pinon, pinyon

From Spanish piñón.

• Rhymes: -ɪnjən

piñon (countable and uncountable, plural piñons or piñones)

1. (uncountable, countable) Any of several species of North American pines in Pinus subsect. Cembroides that bear edible seeds (pine nuts), especially Pinus edulis; the nut pine.
   • 1895, J[ohn] W[esley] Powell, chapter I, in Canyons of the Colorado, Meadville, PA: Flood & Vincent; republished as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, New York: Dover, 1961, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 22:

     On the mountains a few junipers and piñons are found, and cactuses, agave, and yuccas, low, fleshy plants with bayonets and thorns.

   • 1994, Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built, New York: Viking, →ISBN, page 146:

     Anglos call it a “kiva fireplace” and put several in every Santa Fe style building, carefully burning piñon firewood upright in the approved local manner.

   They planted a few piñons.

   The hills were covered with clusters of piñon.

2. (countable, uncountable) A pine nut.

• (North American pines): piñon pine

• ninpo, ninpō