clementine

Etymology

It is borrowed from French clémentine, recorded in French in 1902 in the “Revue Horticole”.^[2][3][4] The French name is generally said to come from Father Clément Rodier (1829–1904), a French missionary in Algeria, in the garden of whose orphanage at Misserghin, near Oran, the fruit was found growing as an accidental hybrid around 1900.^[5][3][6][4] The Oxford Dictionary of English likewise derives it from the man's name French Clément,^[7] while Collins suggests the woman's name Clementine.^[8] Wiktionary analyses the French word as Clément with the suffix -ine.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small orange from an accidental cross of the tangerine and the sour orange: 1926, in H. H. Hume's Cultivation of Citrus Fruits.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The fruit was taken to the United States and grown at the Citrus Research Center in Riverside, California, as early as 1909.^[3] Merriam-Webster's first date for the English word is 1943.^[6] Dictionaries still differ on what it is: a variety of tangerine or mandarin, or a hybrid of the tangerine with the sour or the sweet orange.^[2][6][8][5]

Timeline

• 1926 – a small orange, a hybrid of the tangerine and the sour orange.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small, deep orange, usually seedless citrus fruit with a thin, loose skin, grown mainly around the Mediterranean, in North Africa and in Spain, thought to be a hybrid or a variety of the tangerine.^[6][8][5][7]

Related words

• clement

Usage notes

The capitalised adjective and noun Clementine, relating to Pope Clement V or to Clement of Rome, and a follower of a leader named Clement, is a separate word, from Medieval Latin Clēmentīnus, recorded from about 1380.^[2][9][6]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press