Watermelon
nounA large round or oval fruit with a hard green rind and sweet, watery red or pink flesh dotted with seeds.
How to spell watermelon
10 letters · 4 syllables
How to pronounce watermelon
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does watermelon mean?
- nounA large round or oval fruit with a hard green rind and sweet, watery red or pink flesh dotted with seeds.
Watermelon in a sentence
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She cut a thick slice of watermelon for each child at the picnic.
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A chilled watermelon is the perfect refreshment on a hot afternoon.
Where does watermelon come from?
Language of origin: Latin
This is a transparent English compound joining 'water' and 'melon', coined to describe a fruit whose flesh is famously full of juice. The 'melon' half travelled a long way: it comes from the Latin melo, shortened from melopepo, which itself was borrowed from the Greek melopepon, literally meaning 'apple-shaped gourd' or 'ripe gourd', combining melon 'apple' with pepon 'ripened'. English 'melon' was in use by the late 1300s through Old French, and the longer descriptive form 'watermelon' is recorded from the late 1500s as the large, watery African gourd became known to English speakers. The spelling is mercifully regular for such a long word: it is simply the two familiar parts written as one, with no hidden letters or silent traps.
How the word is built
- water (water)
- melon (from Latin melo, a melon/gourd)
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