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Latin from Scratch › English comes from Latin?!?! › The word «pumpkin» comes from Latin

The word «pumpkin» comes from Latin

Yes, even such a word as English-sounding as «pumpkin» comes from Latin. Actually, this is not exact 100%, in at least two ways… But let’s start from the beginning.

The English word «pumpkin» is made up of the root pump‑ and the suffix ‑kin. This suffix, meaning ‘a type of’, is of Germanic origin, but it is still related to the Latin word genus, generis.

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Now, the pump‑ part is derived from the Middle French pompon, which is a possible evolution from the Latin peponem (pepo, peponis), meaning ‘large melon’. But Latin itself borrowed it from the Greek πέπων (pépōn), related to the verb πέπτω (péptō ‘ripen’).

So, literally, a pumpkin is ‘a type of large melon’.

By the way, have you ever felt some weird similarity in the taste of melon and cucumber? Somehow, the Spaniards already thought of it, and it is from pepo, peponis that the Spanish pepino ‘cucumber’ comes.

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Paco Álvarez

About Paco Álvarez

I’m Paco Álvarez, a Spanish classical philologist. For years I’ve been teaching Latin and Greek online to Spanish students. When I saw there was nothing like my AcademiaLatin.com for English-speaking Latin lovers, I decided to create it myself, and that’s how LatinFromScratch.com was born.

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