pumpkin

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A domesticated plant, in species Cucurbita pepo, similar in growth pattern, foliage, flower, and fruit to the squash or melon.

   Nevertheless, the comprehensive comparative analysis of pumpkin viromes across various geographic regions by NGS remains deficient.

2. 2
   noun

   The round yellow or orange fruit of this plant.

   There were pumpkins in Mombi’s corn-fields, lying golden red among the rows of green stalks; and these had been planted and carefully tended that the four-horned cow might eat of them in the winter time.

3. 3
   noun

   A term of endearment for someone small and cute.

   You must be daddy’s little pumpkin.

4. 4
   noun

   usually large pulpy deep-yellow round fruit of the squash family maturing in late summer or early autumn

5. 5
   noun

   a coarse vine widely cultivated for its large pulpy round orange fruit with firm orange skin and numerous seeds

6. 6
   noun

   The typical color of the ripe fruit of the pumpkin plant.

7. 7
   noun

   Any of a number of cultivars from the genus Cucurbita; known in the US as winter squash.

8. 8
   noun

   The housing for a differential, built into an axle of a vehicle; the housing and its contents.

Etymology

Alteration of pompion, pumpion (“pumpkin”) with the diminutive -kin, from Middle French pompon, from Latin pepō (whence English pepo), from Ancient Greek πέπων (pépōn, “large melon”), from πέπων (pépōn, “ripe”), from πέπτω (péptō, “ripen”). The first attestation is from 1647. The alternative theory that it may be from Massachusett pôhpukun (“grows forth round”) is false. The automotive sense is by fancied resemblance.