Other forms: lemons
A lemon is the bright yellow citrus fruit whose juice is far too sour to drink on its own. A wedge on the side of a plate, a squeeze over fish, a slice floating in a glass of water.
The colour comes straight off the peel: lemon is a pale, slightly greenish yellow, used for walls, cars and summer dresses. In the kitchen you take the zest, which is the outer skin, and the juice, and lemon curd, lemon drizzle and lemonade live off one or both. There is a second, unkind sense in informal English: a lemon is something that turns out faulty, above all a car, as in the van was a lemon from day one. Do not mix lemon up with lime, which is the smaller green one, though as it happens they are the same word twice over.
1nounlemonA yellow citrus fruit with thick peel and very sour juice.
“He cut a lemon into wedges and put one on each plate.”
2adjectivecolourOf a pale, bright yellow, the colour of the fruit's skin.
“She wore a lemon summer dress and a straw hat.”
3noundudIn informal English, something badly made or faulty, above all a car.
“The car turned out to be a lemon and spent more time in the garage than on the road.”
synonyms: dud
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Lemon travelled the whole trade route west. Middle English lymon came from Old French lymon, meaning citrus, which took it from Arabic laymun and Persian limun, and behind those stands Sanskrit nimbu, lime. Lemon and lime are doublets: one word that reached English by two different roads.
Middle English
lymon
English, today
lemon
From Middle English lymon. Middle English lymon, from Old French lymon (“citrus”), from Arabic لَيْمُون or fa-cls لِیمُون, a variant of fa-cls لِیمُو, from Sanskrit निम्बू (“lime”), ultimately from poz-pro limaw or mun lime. a doublet of lime. The fandom sense is named after the erotic anime series Cream Lemon.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA