Why is grapefruit called grapefruit when it doesn't even look like grapes?
@Gorillafootprints925 (3586)
United States
August 15, 2010 2:31pm CST
It doesn't even taste like grapes, so why do you think they call it grapefruit?
I guess it may be that it looks similar to grapes when it is still small but that doesn't really describe the fruit. Who knows?
2 responses
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
15 Aug 10
It seems that the real reason is that the grapefruit grows in clusters which can, to an imaginative person, look rather like bunches of grapes.
The grapefruit seems to be either a hybrid or a natural mutant of something called the pummello or shaddock (after Captain Shaddock, who brought seeds of the pummello from Malaya to the West Indes in the 17th Century).
In French the fruit has the delightful name of 'Pampelmousse' (probably from the Dutch and a corruption of pommello). That word has always fascinated and delighted me ever since I discovered it on a can of grapefruit with multilingual lists of contents!
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
15 Aug 10
'pummelo' may only have one 'l' (there are different spellings). I think I was doing a 'folk derivation' of the word as 'mellow apple'. 'Mel' in Latin is 'honey'; 'mellis' means 'of or from honey' and we have many words, such as 'mellow' and 'mellifluous' which come from that. 'Pomus' is 'apple' in Latin.
In fact, it seems that 'pamplemousse' comes from the Tamil 'pampa limusa' (or 'jumped-up lemon') and that 'pommelo' is a corruption of that. I don't know how true that is ... there is an awful lot of straight-faced rubbish on the Internet!
@jands1 (835)
• United States
15 Aug 10
It is believed that the name "grapefruit" refers to the manner in which grapefruit grows in clusters on a tree. Another explanation is that the premature grapefruit looks similar in shape to unripe green grapes.
The grapefruit is really a hybrid between the orange and the pummelo and considered the newest addition to the citrus family way back in the 1800s.
