pineapple

From Middle English pinappel, meaning "pinecone" (literally "pine-apple"), from Proto-West Germanic *pīnapplu. When Europeans encountered the tropical fruit, they applied this old word to it because of its resemblance to a pinecone.

The word originally meant only "pinecone"; it shifted to name the fruit once that resemblance was noticed, and the old sense faded from English use. In Australian slang, it later picked up a completely separate meaning: a fifty dollar note, named for the yellow color of the banknote.

Dutch pijnappel and German pinapfel (in its older forms) show the same compound sense of "pinecone" surviving longer in those languages than in English, where it was fully replaced by the fruit's name.