coco-de-mer

noun

co·co-de-mer ˌkō(ˌ)-kō-də-ˈmer

variants or coco de mer

plural coco-de-mers or coco de mers

sometimes capitalized

: a very tall, slow-growing palm (Lodoicea maldivica) native to the Seychelles Islands that has large, fan-shaped leaves used for thatching and a very large, fibrous fruit which contains usually one or sometimes two or three bilobed nuts and may weigh as much as 50 pounds (23 kilograms)

Coco-de-mer, the double coconut palm native to the Seychelles, has the biggest seeds in the world; they are the size and shape of human buttocks.—

Popular Science, March 2001

This valley grows the giant coco de mer palms that are found nowhere else. They reach to tremendous heights, and it is quite obvious which are the male and which the female.—

Kathy Gire, ITN, January 1995

called also double coconut, sea coconut