EuroLex/F/Lemon


 * Original language: French
 * Original form and meaning: limon - 1. lemon (Citrus limon); 2. [techn.] drawbar; 3. mud, [geol.] silt

(Note: If the status is not specifically indicated then the word is stylistically neutral and generally used; if earlier meaning and status equals current use the former may be expressed by writing "dito". Cf. also the project guidelines.)

Annotations
Etymology: from OF limon "citrus fruit", from OProv, from Ar laimun or Pers limu(n), [...] cognate with Skt. nimbu "the lime".

Slang meaning "a Quaalude" is 1960s, from Lemmon, name of a pharmaceutical company that once manufactured the drug.

AmE slang "worthless thing", 1909, from lemon, perhaps via criminal slang sense of "a person who is a loser, a simpleton", which is perhaps from the notion of someone a sharper can "suck the juice out of".

To hand someone a lemon was British slang (1906) for "to pass off a sub-standard article as a good one". Or it simply may be a metaphor for something which "leaves a bad taste in one's mouth".

Source: http://www.etymonline.com

Information on Other Languages
meaning 1:

Czech: citrón, citrónový

Danish: citron

Dutch: citroen

Estonian: sidrun

Finnish: sitruuna

German: Zitrone

Hungarian: citrom

Latvian: citrons

Lithuanian: citrina

Norwegian: sitron

Polish: cytryna

Slovak: citrón, citrónový

Swedish: citron

meaning "lime":

Lithuanian: rūgščiavaisio citrinmedžio vaisius

Slovenian: citronka