pipi

American  

[pee-pee] / ˈpi pi /

noun

plural

pipi, pipis

1. an edible bivalve of eastern Australia, Plebidonax deltoides.

2. an edible bivalve of New Zealand, Mesodesma novae-zelandiae.

---

pipi British  

/ ˈpɪpiː /

noun

1. any of various shellfishes, esp Plebidonax deltoides of Australia or Mesodesma novae-zelandiae of New Zealand

---

Etymology

Origin of pipi

Borrowed into English from Maori around 1810–20

Example Sentences

Such was their prominence that, as the French essayist Claude Lussac notes, one dame pipi became the subject of a brief character sketch in Marcel Proust’s sprawling novel “Remembrance of Things Past.”

From New York Times • Sep. 28, 2015

It was that sense of connection to place that at least some of the remaining dames pipi said they loved about their job.

From New York Times • Sep. 28, 2015

“The work was hard, but it was my job” said Pham Tai Doa, 65, who has worked as a dame pipi for 15 of the 25 years since she arrived in France from Vietnam.

From New York Times • Sep. 28, 2015

Today, the dames pipi number barely a dozen, mostly older women who are first-generation immigrants from places like Guinea, Togo and Vietnam.

From New York Times • Sep. 28, 2015

Right from the old pa on the top of Marahemo down to the very foot, there's the Maori middens: a regular reef of nothing but shell, oysters and pipi and scollops and all the rest.

From Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand by Hay, William Delisle