English

Noun

pearmain ‎(plural pearmains)

1. (obsolete) A type of pear.
2. Any of various types of apple, having an elongated shape and often with streaky skin.
   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, II.ii.1.1:

     Sweet fruits are best, as sweet cherries, plums, sweet apples, pearmains, and pippins, which Laurentius extols as having a peculiar property against this disease […].

   • 1826 June 30, Thomas Greene Fessenden (editor), The New England Farmer, Volume 4 [July 1825—July 1826], page 385,

     If it were not so, why, for instance, has not the pearmain — a better apple than the Baldwin or any other Massachusetts winter apple now known to me — been propagated as extensively, and brought in plenty to our markets?

   • 1833, John Claudius Loudon (editor), Art. VII: London Horticutural Society and Garden, Gardener's Magazine and Register of Rural and Domestic Improvement, Volume IX, page 727,

     Apples: Drap d'or, Barcelona pearmain; […] .