pearmain

plural pearmains

1. obsoleteA type of pear.
2. Any of various types of apple, having an elongated shape and often with streaky skin.

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

   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

   2 more examples

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

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 2, section 2, member 1, subsection 1

   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?

1. A surname.