means Relating to the tropics — the hot, humid zone of the Earth near the equator — or anything characteristic of that climate, like heat, lush growth, and fruit you can't grow at home.

from From the Latin 'tropicus' and Greek 'tropikos,' meaning 'pertaining to a turn,' from 'tropē,' a turning. The link is astronomical: the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn mark the latitudes where the sun appears to halt and 'turn back' at the solstices, the farthest it ever swings from the equator. The land caught between those two turning-points became the tropics — and 'tropical' came to mean anything belonging to that sun-soaked belt. The same Greek root for 'turn' gives us 'trope,' a figure of speech that turns meaning.