Origin and history of melon

melon(n.)

late 14c., meloun, "herbaceous, succulent trailing annual plant," or its sweet, edible fruit, from Old French melon (13c.) and directly from Medieval Latin melonem (nominative melo), from Latin melopeponem, a kind of pumpkin, from Greek mēlopepon "gourd-apple" (name for several kinds of gourds bearing sweet fruit), from mēlon "apple" (see malic) + pepon, a kind of gourd, which is probably a noun use of pepon "ripe" (see pumpkin).

Among the earliest plants to be domesticated. In Greek, melon was used in a generic way for all foreign fruits (compare similar use of apple). The Greek plural of "melon" was used from ancient times for "a girl's breasts."

also from late 14c.

Entries linking to melon

apple(n.)

Middle English appel, from Old English æppel "apple; any kind of fruit; fruit in general," from Proto-Germanic *ap(a)laz (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Dutch appel, Old Norse eple, Old High German apful, German Apfel). This is reconstructed to be from PIE *ab(e)l- "apple" (source also of Gaulish avallo "fruit;" Old Irish ubull, Lithuanian obuolys, Old Church Slavonic jabloko "apple"), but the exact relation and original sense of these is uncertain (compare melon).

In Middle English and as late as 17c., apple was a generic term for all fruit other than berries but including nuts (e.g. Old English fingeræppla "dates," literally "finger-apples;" Middle English appel of paradis "banana"). Hence its grafting onto the unnamed "fruit of the forbidden tree" in Genesis.

As far as the forbidden fruit is concerned, again, the Quran does not mention it explicitly, but according to traditional commentaries it was not an apple, as believed by Christians and Jews, but wheat. [Seyyed Hossein Nasr, "The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity," 2002]

Cucumbers, in one Old English work, are eorþæppla, literally "earth-apples" (compare French pomme de terre "potato," literally "earth-apple;" see also melon). French pomme is from Latin pomum "apple; fruit" (see Pomona).

Apple of Discord (c. 1400) was thrown into the wedding of Thetis and Peleus by Eris (goddess of chaos and discord), who had not been invited, and inscribed kallisti "To the Prettiest One." Paris, elected to choose which goddess should have it, gave it to Aphrodite, offending Hera and Athene, with consequences of the Trojan War, etc.

Apple of one's eye (Old English), symbol of what is most cherished, was the pupil, supposed to be a globular solid body. Apple-polisher "one who curries favor" is attested by 1928 in student slang. The image in the phrase upset the apple cart "spoil the undertaking" is attested from 1788. Road-apple "horse dropping" is by 1942.

A roted eppel amang þe holen, makeþ rotie þe yzounde. ["Ayenbite of Inwit," 1340]

malic(adj.)

"pertaining to apples, obtained from the juice of apples," 1790 (in malic acid, in a translation of Fourcroy), from French malique, from Latin mālum "apple" from Greek mēlon (Doric malon) "apple," which is probably from the Pre-Greek substrate language. The Latin and Greek words also meant "fruit" generally, especially if exotic. The acid, discovered 1785 by Swedish/German chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, was obtained from unripe apples and other fruits.