pepo

Forms

pepō m (genitive peponis); third declension^[1] The Greek nominative pepon also occurs; manuscripts and glosses write popo-, paepo-, pipo- and pemo-.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek πέπων (pépōn, “ripe; melon”),^[3][4][1] which was at first an adjective, “ripe”.^[2] Isidore of Seville and the glossaries already recognised it as Greek.^[2] Beekes explains the Greek adjective as a derivative of Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ- (“to cook, ripen”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Pliny the Elder (23/24–79 AD),^[6] who says that cucumbers that have grown very large are called pepones.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

It named a large kind of melon, the watermelon in the TLL's identification.^[2] Diocletian's price edict lists it, Apicius has recipes for pepones et melones, and it appears in medicine and diet.^[2] Tertullian mocks a man who has “a melon in place of a heart”, peponem cordis loco.^[8] The Vulgate has it among the foods the Israelites remembered,^[3] and British Medieval Latin used it for the melon, often with reference to that verse.^[9] It survives in Romance, as Tuscan Italian popone and Old Spanish pepon (Spanish pepino).^[2] New Latin used it for the pumpkin, Cucurbita pepo.^[1]

Timeline

• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it for very large cucumbers.^[2][6]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian speaks of a melon in place of a heart.^[8][6]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate has it in Numbers 11:5.^[3][6]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville notes its Greek origin.^[2][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large melon, especially the watermelon.^[3][4][2]
2. (New Latin) A pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo).^[1]

Related words

• mēlopepō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press