Etymology
Propagated into the US 1959 from Yugoslavia—1986 again from Macedonia as smokvarka / смокварка (smokvarka)—, which itself has only grafts descending from a single tree described 1834 in the Parisian Jardin du Roi, as the hybrid’s fruits are mostly sterile. Given that the Serbo-Croatian accent is imitated in the current pronunciation, we can be confident to say that this word is from the Serbo-Croatian descendant of Proto-Slavic *šipъ used itself or in derivatives to refer to rosaceous plants + *-ovъ (suffix used to form relative adjectives) + *-a (feminine ending)