lemonade

Etymology

It is borrowed from French limonade,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} formed from limon (“lemon”) and the suffix -ade;^[2][5][6] the French noun for the fruit goes back to Middle French lymon.^[5][7] Etymonline notes that the French word, recorded from the 1560s as limonade and limonnade, is either from Italian limonata or a French formation from limon.^[8] Dictionary.com takes the English word as formed from lemon and -ade, modelled on the French word or on Spanish limonada.^[9] An earlier English spelling was lemonado, about 1640, with a false Spanish ending.^[8] Johnson simply derived it from lemon.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A drink of lemon juice and water sweetened with sugar.^[2][5] Merriam-Webster dates the first known use to 1604;^[5] Etymonline dates the English form to the 1650s, after lemonado about 1640,^[8] and Dictionary.com to 1655–65.^[9] The OED's first quotation is from Thomas Killigrew's comedy The Parsons Wedding, dated 1664,^[2] where OED 1989 had 1663.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it as a liquor made of water, sugar and the juice of lemons, quoting Arbuthnot's John Bull.^[10] OED 1989 noted that in England the word was by then very commonly applied to aerated lemonade,^[11] and in British use it now often means a sweet, colourless, carbonated drink flavoured with lemon.^[12][3][13] According to Barry Popik, pink lemonade is popularly linked with the circus, and the circus man Pete Conklin claimed to have invented it in 1857.^[14] In 20th-century American slang lemonade was also heroin or other drugs of poor quality,^[15][1] and Stephen King used make lemonade for urinating (1977).^[16]

Timeline

• 1604 – first known use, according to Merriam-Webster.^[5]
• c. 1640 – the earlier spelling lemonado.^[8]
• 1650s – lemonade.^[8][9]
• 1664 – first OED quotation, in Killigrew's The Parsons Wedding.^[2]
• 1755 – Johnson defines it as water, sugar and lemon juice.^[10]
• 1857 – Pete Conklin's claim to have invented pink lemonade.^[14]
• 1957 – US slang, weak or poor-quality heroin.^[15]
• 1977 – US slang, urine, in Stephen King.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A drink of lemon juice sweetened with sugar and mixed with still or carbonated water: We sold cups of lemonade at the school fair.^[5][17][2]
2. (British) A sweet, usually colourless, fizzy soft drink flavoured with lemon.^[12][3][13]
3. (US slang) heroin or other drugs of poor quality.^[15][1]

Related words

• lemon
• lime
• -ade

Usage notes

Hendrickson notes that for Americans lemonade is a cold drink of lemon juice, water and sugar, while for the British, Australians and New Zealanders it is a clear soda, often lemon-flavoured.^[18] Where the fizzy sense is usual, the still drink is often called homemade or old-fashioned lemonade.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
8. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b Popik, Barry, The Big Apple, barrypopik.com, p. "Pink Lemonade", 29 December 2008
15. ^ a b c Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
16. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File