SG Heritage Dictionary

Cashew [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

A tree (Anacardium occidentale) of the same family which the sumac. It is native in tropical America, but is now naturalized in all tropical countries. Its fruit, a kidney-shaped nut, grows at the extremity of an edible, pear-shaped hypocarp, about three inches long.

Cashew nut Encyclopedia Britannica

CASHEW NUT, the fruit of the Cashew, Cadju, or Acajou tree, Anacardium occidentale (Nat. Ord. Anacardiaceoe), a native of the West Indian Islands. The fruit is kidney-shaped, about an inch in length, and the kernel is enclosed in two coverings, the outer of which is smooth, grey, and leathery. Inside this external rind is a darkcoloured layer, containing an excessively acrid juice. The kernels have a bland, oily, pleasant taste. They are much eaten, both raw and roasted, in the tropical regions in which the tree is cultivated, and they yield a light-coloured, sweet-tasted oil, said to be equal to olive oil for culinaιy purposes. The fruit-stalk, immediately under the fruit, is swollen and fleshy, and assumes a pear-like shape. This swollen portion of the stalk has a pleasant acid taste, and is eaten under the name of Cashew Apple. By fermentation it yields an alcoholic beverage, from which a spirit for drinking is distilled in the West Indies and Brazil The tree also yields a gum analogous to gum arabic.

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5, p. 175
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Cashew-nut [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

A tree of the West-Indies, Anacardium, bearing a kidney-shaped nut. The fruit is as large as an orange, and full of an acid juice, which is often used to make punch. To the apex of this fruit grows a nut, of the size of a hares kidney, the shell of which is hard, and the kernel, which is sweet, is covered with a thin film.