Case File #020.10.28: PUMPKIN

While pumpkins have been a part of the Halloween tradition for a mere two centuries or so, the English noun pumpkin has been around for at least twice that long and its antecedents are downright ancient. The current form of the word appeared in the mid-seventeenth century and quickly displaced the previous form, pumpion, which itself had come into use circa 1540 to replace the older pompon, a word borrowed directly from the Middle French at the end of the fifteenth century. Pompon had evolved from the Old French popon—a transformation that likely occurred during the late fourteenth century—and the Old French was a descendant of the classical Latin pepo. But the Latin word didn't mean only “pumpkin”; depending on the context in which it was used, it could also mean “watermelon or other such fruit.” This is because its source was the Greek pepon, which meant “ripened or cooked melon.” Now if you're like me, you're wondering why the ancient Romans thought a Greek word for soft fruit would make a good moniker for pumpkins, and furthermore, you're probably asking yourself why they thought the same word should also be the designation for watermelons. Sadly, the answers to those questions are lost in the fog of history. We can be happy, though, that pumpkin didn't ultimately inherit its ancestor's association with watermelons, because Halloween would be about as spooky as Christmas if jack-o'-lanterns were green and red instead of orange.

©2020 Michael R. Gates

Case File #020.10.14: IMP

Believe it or not, the noun imp doesn't have the fiendish pedigree that its current meanings might suggest. It is a descendant of the Late Latin verb imputare, which meant “to graft (onto)” and was itself the progeny of a Greek verb, emphuein (sometimes transliterated as emphyein), that meant “to implant.” When the Anglo-Saxons adopted the Latin verb, they kept its meaning but changed the spelling to impian, and from that they formed the noun impa and used it to mean “a graft or young shoot.” Impa passed into Middle English as impe, but sometime towards the end of the fourteenth century, the word's meaning shifted from “a young shoot” to “a child of a noble family.” English speakers in the early sixteenth century must not have thought too highly of the children of nobility, however, because they're the ones who changed the spelling of impe to the now familiar imp and used it to mean “a small demon” or “a child of the Devil,” and it wasn't until the middle of the seventeenth century that the noun took on the additional and somewhat softer sense of “a mischievous child.”

©2020 Michael R. Gates