Kiwi can mean a small, brown, fuzzy fruit with bright green or yellow flesh and tiny black seeds, or a flightless bird from New Zealand with a long beak. Informally, it is also a nickname for a person from New Zealand.
From Māori “kiwi” for the bird, imitating its call. The fruit was originally called “Chinese gooseberry” but was renamed “kiwifruit” for marketing, borrowing the bird’s name.
The fruit’s name is actually a marketing success story: exporters rebranded “Chinese gooseberries” as “kiwifruit” to make them more appealing. The bird came first; the fruit borrowed its identity. It’s a reminder that even fruit names can be shaped by global trade.
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