Lemon

How to spell lemon

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce lemon

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lemon mean?

1. nounA yellow citrus fruit with a sour, acidic juice, used in cooking and drinks.
2. nounInformal term for a product, especially a car, that proves to be defective or unreliable.

Lemon in a sentence

• She squeezed half a lemon over the grilled fish.

• The used car turned out to be a lemon that broke down every week.

• The recipe calls for the zest of one lemon.

• He returned the laptop after realising it was a lemon.

Where does lemon come from?

Language of origin: Arabic

Lemon came into English in the late 1300s through Old French limon, which referred to citrus fruits generally. The French had taken it from Arabic laymun, a collective term for citrus, and the Arabic word itself goes back to Persian limun and ultimately to roots in South and East Asia, where citrus trees originated. The fruit and its name travelled westward with traders along Mediterranean routes, so the word arrived in Europe alongside the actual cargo. The same Arabic source also gave us 'lime', which is why the two names look and sound like cousins. The modern informal sense, a product that turns out to be defective, grew up in American slang during the early twentieth century, probably from the idea of biting into something sour and disappointing.

How the word is built

• lemon (single root, borrowed whole; no prefix or suffix)