Since today is Halloween, I thought that it would be appropriate to examine a relevant word: pumpkin.

Known for their harvest season appearances, especially as carved jack-o’-lanterns or in pies of the same name, pumpkins are actually fruit (not vegetables) of the family Cucurbitaceae, usually Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita maxima, Cucurbita mixta or Cucurbita moschata. The short-season, non-trailing variation of Cucurbita pepo is commonly referred to as squash, while the long-season, trailing, “big” variation is identified as pumpkin.

As for the actual etymology, pumpkin traces its illustrious origins from the now obsolete word pumpion, which comes from the equally obsolete Middle French words pompon and popon. These, in turn, came from the Old French pepon, which got its meaning from the Latin pepō, or a “kind of melon,” and the Greek pepōn, meaning “ripe.” Hence, as far as my educated guess is concerned, we get the idea of a ripe melon or pumpkin. Speaking of the suffix — “kin”, it is Middle English for “little one,” and probably comes from the Middle Dutch (and thus the older Germanic languages).

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the first recorded use of pumpion occurred in 1526, to be exact. It was later defined by Sir Thomas Elyot (1490-1546) in the 1545 edition of his dictionary, the first English dictionary of classical Latin, as “… a kynde of Melones called Pompones” (sic). Elyot was an administrator in the court of King Henry VIII (yes, the one with lots of wives). A friend of Sir Thomas More, Elyot was an accomplished author in his own right, and his works helped to later inspire the idea of the learned English gentleman, especially his treatise on the education of the nobility, The Boke named The Governour (sic).

As for the first use of pumpkin proper, we can skip ahead to 1647, when the Puritan minister Nathaniel Ward (c.1578-1652) used the word in his zealous defense of the status quo, The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America, with the line, “… he would come over to us, to helpe recruite our pumpkin blasted braines” (sic). Ward, forced out of England in an era of religious persecution, was also the author of The Body of Liberties, a legal code that combined Mosaic and common law for the Puritan colony of Massachusetts.

Among the other uses of pumpkin are two that are quite different from each other.

The first refers to a self-important and generally dumb, stupid or, at the least, silly person, sometimes also in reference to their stout or melon-like bodies.

In Act I, Scene II of The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare uses this meaning with the older form of pumpkin, with the line, “We’l vse this vnwholsome humidity, this grosse-watry Pumpion…” (sic; replace “v” with “u”). It’s probably not a coincidence that the chubby knight Sir John Falstaff appears in the very next line.

As for the other, and nicer, use of pumpkin, it’s an American term of affectionate endearment for a sweetheart or darling, sometimes used in plural form. It made its first written appearance, as noted by the OED, in 1900, and then later in Lester V. Berry and Melvin Van den Bark’s American Thesaurus of Slang.

Finally, it should also be noted that a matter or person of importance can be referred to as “some pumpkins.” It’s another American slang term that originated in the 19th century (also note that pumpkin was and often still is pronounced as “pompkin” or “punkin” in different parts of the United States).

So the next time you see a big orange gourd, either carved up or in a pie, you’ll know where its name came from — and that’s “some pumpkins.” Please feel free to submit your word ideas and, until we meet again, cheerio. Have a safe Halloween.

[Reach columnist Will Mari at features@thedaily.washington.edu.]