/ kwɪns; NAmE / noun
a hard bitter yellow fruit used for making jam, etc. It grows on a tree, also called a quince :
quince jelly
a flowering quince
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WORD ORIGIN
Middle English (originally a collective plural): from Old French cooin , from Latin (malum) cotoneum , variant of (malum) cydonium apple of Cydonia (= Chania, in Crete).