lemon The lemon is of course a close relative of the lime, and it is appropriate that their names should come from the same source: Arabic lmah, ‘citrus fruit’. The term travelled west with the fruit, from Persia and the Middle East to Europe, and reached English at the end of the thirteenth century via Old French limon (which in modern French means ‘lime’).
The lemons came, no doubt, with the recommendation of the Crusaders, who had first encountered them in the Holy Land in the late twelfth century, but to begin with they were naturally a rare and expensive luxury (39 bought for Queen Eleanor in 1290 cost a pound). From the end of the fourteenth century, however, supplies became more regular and plentiful, and the lemon began to establish itself as an essential item in the kitchen.
It was particularly valued for the drinks that could be made with it, refreshing but also good for you (‘I drank water and lemons, by physician's advice’ wrote Lady Russell in 1594). Indeed, it was towards the end of the sixteenth century that the usefulness of lemons and limes in preventing scurvy began to be realized. The British Admiralty did not act on this knowledge for two hundred years, however.
It was not until 1795 that lemon juice was officially issued to British sailors, and in the following twenty years no less than 1.6 million gallons of it were drunk. Around the same time we begin to see the first signs of the use of lemon as a colour term, for a pale yellow—probably an indication of the increasing familiarity of the fruit itself.
Modern slang has not used the lemon kindly, with senses alluding more to the sour taste of the fruit. In the USA a lemon is ‘something defective or disappointing’ (hence the expression ‘The answer is a lemon’, denoting that no satisfactory reply was given) or an ‘informer, stoolpigeon’, while in Britain and elsewhere it is a ‘gormless person’. To ‘hand someone a lemon’ is to swindle or trick them, and in Australia and New Zealand to ‘go lemony at someone’ is to get angry with them.
The lemon of lemon sole, incidentally, was probably adapted from French limande, and does not appear to have any etymological connection with the fruit.
How to cite this entry:
"lemon" An A-Z of Food and Drink. Ed. John Ayto. Oxford university Press, 2002. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 31 August 2011
