lemon

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A yellow citrus fruit with a sour taste.

   She squeezed a lemon over the fish.

2. 2
   noun

   Something, especially a car, that is faulty and disappointing.

   He didn't realise until he'd paid that the car was a lemon.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Lemon came into English in the Middle English period and ultimately derives from Arabic līm, a collective term for citrus fruit. Because the lemon is the least valuable symbol on fruit machines, it may have inspired the early-20th-century phrase “the answer is a lemon,” meaning that the response or outcome is unsatisfactory. In American English, lemon can also mean a defective car.

Etymology tree Arabic ليمونbor. Old French lymonbor. Middle English lymon English lemon Inherited from Middle English lymon, from Old French lymon (“citrus”), from Arabic لَيْمُون (laymūn) or Persian لیمون (limon), from Persian لیمو (limu), from Sanskrit निम्बू (nimbū, “lime”), ultimately from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *limaw or Munda. Likely a doublet of lime. The fandom sense is named after the erotic anime series Cream Lemon.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary