The apricot (Prunus armeniaca or Armenian plum in Latin, syn. Armeniaca vulgaris, Armenian: Ծիրան, Chinese: 杏子, Czech: Meruňka) is a fruit-bearing tree, native to Armenia and China and spread to Europe and the Caucasus. It is classified with the plum in the subgenus Prunus of the Prunus genus.
It is a small- to medium-sized tree with a dense, spreading canopy 8–12 m tall; its leaves are shaped somewhat like a heart, with pointed tips, and about 8 cm long and 3–4 cm wide. Its flowers are white to pinkish in color. The fruit appears similar to a peach or nectarine, with a color ranging from yellow to orange and sometimes a red cast; its surface is smooth and nearly hairless. Apricots are stone fruit (drupes), so called because the lone seed is often called a "stone".
The name derives from "apricock" and "abrecox", through the French abricot, from the Spanish albaricoque, which was an adaptation of the Arabic al-burquk, itself a rendering of the late Greek πρεκοκκια or πραικοκιον, adapted from the Latin praecox or praecoquus, early, possibly referring to the fruit maturing much earlier in the summer than plums. However, in Argentina and Chile the word for "apricot" is "damasco" which probably indicates that to the Spanish settlers of Argentina the fruit was associated with Damascus in Syria.