Etymologically
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plum

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English plum, later plumme and ploume,[2][3] inherited from Old English plūme (“plum, plum tree”),[4][5][2][6] which corresponds to Old Saxon plūm, Middle Low German plūme and Old High German pflūmo (“plum tree”), now German Pflaume.[5][2][6] These forms are variants of older ones with r instead of l, such as Middle Dutch prūme (now Dutch pruim) and pfrūma;[5][2][7] Old Norse plóma was perhaps taken from Old English.[7][6] The change from r to l is found only in Germanic and in medieval Latin texts written in England.[5][4] The Germanic word is usually considered an early loan from Latin,[5] from Vulgar Latin *prūna, a feminine singular made from the neuter plural of Latin prūnum (“plum”),[2][8][4] but the OED notes that the -m- of every Germanic form is hard to explain and that none of the conflicting views is generally accepted.[5] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek προῦμνον (proûmnon, “plum”),[8][9][4][3] of unknown origin, probably from Asia Minor,[2][4][10] and possibly Phrygian.[8][11] The same Latin word gave prune, so the two are doublets.[2][10][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fruit and the tree: in the early Old English Épinal and Corpus glossaries,[5] Old English plūme being recorded from about 700.[2] Middle English plum is recorded from about 1150.[2]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the dried fruit came to be called prune, borrowed from French, from about 1400, which separated the two words.[2] From the 17th century plum was also used of a raisin in puddings and cakes, probably because raisins had replaced the dried plums of the older recipes for plum porridge and plum pudding;[9][2][5] the sense is now rare except in such compounds.[6][5] In 17th-century slang a plum was a fortune of £100,000, and in the 18th century a person who had one.[13][5][9] The sense "a desirable thing, a coveted prize" followed: Etymonline dates it to 1780, the OED and Barnhart to 1825;[4][5][2] it is usually explained by the picking of the best bits out of a plum pudding,[4][12] or, according to Weekley, by Little Jack Horner.[9] A plum job is now a choice post.[14][6] The colour sense, deep reddish purple, is late 19th century.[6] Word Origins notes that the phrase a plum in the mouth goes back to the 1530s, first for indistinct rather than upper-class speech.[12] The vowel was shortened in early modern English;[4] the form ploume survives in Scotland and northern England.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 700 – Old English plūme.[2]
  • early Old English – the fruit and the tree, in the Épinal and Corpus glossaries.[5]
  • c. 1150 – Middle English plum.[2]
  • 1530 – a particular variety of plum, with a distinguishing word.[5]
  • 1653 – a raisin as used in puddings and cakes.[5]
  • 1689–1702 – slang, a fortune of £100,000.[13]
  • 1711 – plum pudding.[2]
  • 1780 – something desirable, according to Etymonline; 1825 in the OED.[4][5][2]
  • late 19th century – a deep reddish-purple colour.[6]
  • 1902 – the wood of the plum tree.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The smooth-skinned oval fruit of a tree of the genus Prunus, a drupe with a flattened stone, purple, red, yellow or green when ripe.[3][14][5]
  2. The tree bearing this fruit; also its wood.[14][5][3]
  3. A raisin as used in a cake or pudding.[14][5]
  4. A deep reddish-purple colour; also used as an adjective: a plum velvet coat.[14][6]
  5. (informal) Something especially good or desirable, such as a choice job: a plum role in the new series.[14][5][6]
  6. (slang, archaic) A sum of £100,000; a fortune.[5][13]
  7. (vulgar slang, usually plural) A testicle.[14][13]

Word family

  • plumlike
  • plumcot
  • plummy
  • sugarplum
  • plum pudding
  • plum tomato

Usage notes

A separate dialect verb plum, to swell or rise like dough, recorded from before 1398 and of unknown origin, and the adjective plum, soft or plump, formed from it, are unrelated to the fruit.[5][6][3] Johnson (1755) objected to the then common spelling plumb for the fruit.[15]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  12. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  14. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.