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Dried grapes¹ have their own special word: "raisins". There are a few words for different types of dried meats ("jerky", "prosciutto", etc.). But other than "raisin", I can't think of any special words for dried fruits or vegetables. Dried apples are just "dried apples". Dried tomatoes are "sun-dried tomatoes". And so forth.

Is "raisin" the only word of this kind, or are there any others? Since this seems to be a scarce type of word, I would count foreign language words if they're used at least occasionally as loan-words.

¹ I see from the answer to this more-specific question ( Is there a word for dried blueberries? ) that "raisin" can also be used as a word for some other dried fruits. The question also reminded me that there are a few recently coined words such as "craisin", which suggests that older words of this type are scarce.

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Steve
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    In BrE, I believe, raisins, or at least a certain type of raisins (the yellow ones) have another special name: sultanas. – Dan Bron Mar 10 '16 at 19:37
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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dried_foods#Dried_fruit – choster Mar 10 '16 at 20:09
  • @Dan Bron, that's how I meant to edit it. Thanks. I don't think I have the privilege (anywhere on Stack Exchange) to edit someone else's question, so I didn't expect someone else to do it for me. – Steve Mar 10 '16 at 20:10
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    @Steve No problem. That's what we're here for. Every post is a community effort, and quality is everyone's responsibility. – Dan Bron Mar 10 '16 at 20:12
  • @Steve Lerida, Baglama, Protoben, and Garland dried figs, just to name a few... https://books.google.fr/books?id=zbNNAAAAMAAJ&q=Lerida,+Protoben,+Baglama,+garland+dried+figs&dq=Lerida,+Protoben,+Baglama,+garland+dried+figs&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiwu4jh-rbLAhXDVxoKHTp0ALsQ6AEIHTAA – Elian Mar 10 '16 at 20:33
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    @Elian those are not recognized in the US – Mitch Mar 10 '16 at 20:38
  • @Mitch How about Medjool dates? – Elian Mar 10 '16 at 20:41
  • @Elian yes medjool but it seems only recently because being sold by that name a lot in US grocery stores in the past 5 years. But that word doesn't mean 'dried dates' just a variety of dates. No concern that they're dried. – Mitch Mar 10 '16 at 20:45
  • There's "banana chips", though that's two words, and includes the original un-dried fruit in the name. Still, I've never heard any other fruit called "chips" when dried. (There's "corn chips", but there's a lot more involved in those than simply drying corn.) – Darrel Hoffman Mar 10 '16 at 21:45
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    Peppercorns are dried berries, but we never eat them in non-dried form. – Lee Daniel Crocker Mar 10 '16 at 22:54
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    Prunes came to mind as soon as I saw the question in the sidebar. – Jim Balter Mar 11 '16 at 09:58
  • @DarrelHoffman "apple chips"? Apples dried until they're crispy (they porbably start off as thinner slices than the spongy sort of dried apple. – Chris H Mar 11 '16 at 10:36
  • Is the term "anjeer" recognized and commonly used in the West? Anjeer is the Hindi word for figs. – BiscuitBoy Mar 11 '16 at 11:22
  • off topic: in Austria and Bavaria there is a special name for dried pears: Kletze. This dried pears are used for a sweet bread baked before christmas that is called Kletzenbrot. – miracle173 Mar 12 '16 at 19:51

8 Answers8

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One obvious answer is sultanas (AKA golden raisins, defined as dried white grapes - Cambridge). A better answer is prunes (dried plums - Cambridge ) . Interestingly raisin and prune are both the French name for the matching undried fruit.

Another oddity is currant both a small raisin and (black-, white-, or red-) a completely different fruit (Cambridge again).

They're not dried but gherkins are worth a mention too.

Chris H
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    +1 for prunes. That should have occurred to me immediately. Can you please [edit] in some references and dictionary definitions for the two words you suggest? We prefer answers - even obviously correct answers - offer some authoritative citations, so people not in the know can distinguish fact from opinion. – Dan Bron Mar 10 '16 at 19:38
  • Prunes! Of course. An interesting thing about "prune" is that it can also refer to an un-dried fruit. Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prune , citing the OED) says that usage is obsolete except for varieties grown for drying, but I've certainly heard people refer to prunes as an un-dried fruit distinct from plums, so maybe it's not as obsolete as the OED says. – Steve Mar 10 '16 at 19:46
  • @Chris H, speaking of limitations on mobile, I could stand to edit my question (next time I'm on a regular computer) to use the asterisk and the link to the earlier question so it looks nicer. – Steve Mar 10 '16 at 19:53
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    Weird thing about prunes is I've seen both "prune juice" and "plum juice" sold in stores. I can't imagine what the difference could be since they're the same fruit... – Darrel Hoffman Mar 10 '16 at 21:41
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    @DarrelHoffman Prune juice is dried plum juice, presumably. :-p – Janus Bahs Jacquet Mar 10 '16 at 21:43
  • @DarrelHoffman: Prune "juice" is generally an extract of dried plums (prunes). I've never had "plum juice" but prune juice has taste and consistency different from what I would imagine a plum juice would taste like (based on how the fresh fruit tastes). – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Mar 11 '16 at 07:59
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    "I can't imagine what the difference could be" -- how odd, as imagining that is very easy to do. I would expect prune juice to be more concentrated. Also, the fruit cells undergo chemical changes during drying that I would expect to result in significant taste differences between the two, just as prunes and plums taste quite different. And even if you have no imagination at all, there's always google: https://www.google.com/search?q=prune%20juice%20vs%20plum%20juice – Jim Balter Mar 11 '16 at 10:03
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    Re: "raisin and prune" : historically, if you were going to export perishable goods from France to England, you'd better preserve them first, by drying. So the French name naturally becomes associated with the dried fruit and the native name with the fresh fruit. – user_1818839 Mar 11 '16 at 15:17
  • @BrianDrummond I like that description, I don't suppose you have a source for it do you? – Chris H Mar 11 '16 at 16:21
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    @Darrel Hoffman: Imagination is not needed when you can perform an experiment. Buy some prune juice and some plum juice, taste both. You'll now know the difference :-) – jamesqf Mar 11 '16 at 17:50
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A number of Spanish names for chili peppers have migrated into English (at least in parts of the western and southwestern United States, where many types of chilies are sold in fruit and vegetable markets). Three varieties of these peppers have different names when fresh and when dry:

  • poblano chilies (fresh) are called ancho chilies (dried)

  • chilaca chilies (fresh) are called pasilla chilies (dried)

  • jalapeño peppers (fresh) are called morita or chipotle peppers (smoked & dried)

A book called 12 Essential Chili Peppers for Mexican Cooking shows pictures of some of these peppers.

Whether you're inclined to view these words as foreign or as naturalized English depends on where you live and how interested you are in Mexican-style cooking. (The same goes for words like enchilada, tamale, taco, and molé, I suppose.) In the San Francisco Bay Area, the words ancho, pasilla, and chipotle are widely recognized; morita is probably less familiar. I have seen all of the pepper varieties listed above (except fresh chilacas) for sale at the vegetable market where I shop.

Sven Yargs
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    A strong point in favor of the view that a word has been naturalized is the existence of a brand. +1 – Patrick M Mar 10 '16 at 20:29
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    Chipotles are dried jalapeños?! Today I learnt! – Janus Bahs Jacquet Mar 10 '16 at 21:44
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    Chipotles are not necessarily dried. The ones you buy canned in adobo sauce are not. I believe a chipotle is a jalapeno that has been allowed to ripen before picking, and is usually roasted. – The Photon Mar 11 '16 at 06:01
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    @ThePhoton: I believe that the canned chipotles that you are talking about are remoisturized by the adobo sauce that they are packed in, much as sun-dried tomatoes in jars of olive oil are. Previously, however, the peppers are dried by being smoked for several days in an enclosed smoking chamber. You can read about the process on the "Chipotle" Wikipedia page. You're right that jalapeños destined to become chipotles are allowed to ripen to redness, which (Wikipedia says) also leads to their being drier than green jalapeños, even before smoking. – Sven Yargs Mar 11 '16 at 06:15
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    The Austin [Texas] Chronicle has an interesting article about the varieties of chipotle chiles that are produced in Mexico (and Texas) and about the process of producing them—including a paragraph on chipotles canned in adobo sauce. – Sven Yargs Mar 11 '16 at 17:35
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Goji berries are dried wolfberries (Lycium barbarum)

If you saw a fresh wolfberry and you knew it looked like the thing on a packet of something that contained "Goji berries", you might call the fresh berry a Goji berry too, but actually Goji are always dried. The name comes from Chinese where Goji is specifically the name of the dried berry.

J.J
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    I ask a really good question about "inlining functions in python" that took me hours to research on Stack Overflow and it gets 2 down votes and 3 upvotes. I blow the whistle on academic fraud in Academia.SE and i get 4 downvotes and 5 upvotes. I post about goji berries in English.SE and I get 18 upvotes and no downvotes -_-; Why can't every site be as nice as you guys. – J.J Mar 12 '16 at 10:48
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    Because I for one didn't know that Goji berries were wolfberry, in the pat of Italy where I'm from, the former is a relatively newcomer. I had to look up wolfberries on Google to see what they looked like :) – Mari-Lou A Mar 12 '16 at 20:00
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The trademarked word Craisins® has been coined to refer to Ocean Spray's specific brand of sweetened dried cranberries, however you will also see the word being used generically for any form of dried cranberries.

barbecue
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12

Prunes for plums is another option.

The dried, wrinkled fruit of certain species of plum.

daemondave
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Dried apricot was historically an important commodity along the Silk Road because of its long shelf life without refrigeration. Words for it were borrowed into Russian: kuragá (stress on the last syllable) and uryúk (likewise), the difference being that the latter is dried with the pit still inside. No similar term exists for English, although I wonder if perhaps Hindi or Urdu borrowed such words, in which case they could make their way into the local English vocabulary.

Incidentally, 'Due to the popular U.S. perception of prunes being used only for relief of constipation, and being the subject of related joking, many distributors stopped using the word "prune" on packaging labels in favour of [... drumroll ...] "dried plums".'

ghostarbeiter
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I had the same idea as choster and looked at Wikipedia's list of dried foods.

I found two more words you might want to consider. I checked the Cambridge Dictionaries, Collins dictionary, Oxford Dictionaries and Merriam Webster and listed their entries where applicable alongside Wikipedia's description

Ristra

Ristra – Wikipedia

"A ristra is an arrangement of drying chili pepper pods. [...] Garlic can also be arranged into a ristra".

Ristra – Collins dictionary

"a string of dried chilli peppers, sometimes used as decoration

Origin

Late 19th century; earliest use found in Los Angeles Daily Times. From Spanish ristra string, especially a string of garlic or onions, later also of chillies, etc., ultimately from classical Latin restis."

Ristra – Oxford Dictionaries

"A string or garland of dried chillis or other produce, often used as a decoration."

Chuño

Chuño – Wikipedia

"a freeze-dried potato product traditionally made by [...][repeatedly] exposing a frost-resistant variety of potatoes to the very low night temperatures of the Andean Altiplano, freezing them, and subsequently exposing them to the intense sunlight of the day".

Chuño – Merriam Webster: Only listed in their paid unabridged dictionary.

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Søren D. Ptæus
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In the UK at least, he simple term date refers to the dried fruit. The more rarely seen (and higher-priced) fresh dates are always referred to as such.

John Bentin
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