Hi there, can you please give me a good explanation why pineapple is called pine-apple though pine trees have nothing to do with pineapples?
The word pineapple comes from the Spanish word piña, which means pinecone. The fruit that we now know as pineapples was originally called piña by Spanish explorers who first encountered it in the Americas. European explorers who later encountered the fruit saw its resemblance to pinecones and began calling it pineapple in English.

The pineapple plant that produces the fruit we know as pineapples is scientifically known as Ananas comosus. This is the same species that was originally brought to the Caribbean and South America by Spanish explorers. While there are other types of plants that are sometimes called pineapple, they are not the same as Ananas comosus.

So, while the name pineapple may have originated from the Spanish word for pinecone, it now specifically refers to the fruit produced by the tropical plant Ananas comosus.
Why is it that the English language calls the fruit ”pineapple” instead of some veriety of the word ”ananas”, like most of the other European languages?
Great question. What we now known as a *pine cone*, which is the seed-bearing fruit of the pine tree, was the first fruit to be called *pineapple*. It was so-named from the practice of medieval botanists to refer to any unfamiliar fruit on a tree that was thought to resemble the firm, roundish apple in some way by the name *apple*.

English explorer Captain John Smith was one of the earliest to record the word *pineapple* for the tropical fruit in 1624. It may be that Smith recalled the things that grew on pine trees when he saw the fruit, but more than likely it was so-named by the practice of calling a newly-encountered fruit *apple*. The captain was obviously unaware of the name *ananas* for the fruit, which was already in use in English at the time.