watermelon
Pluralwatermelons
- 1The fruit of the watermelon plant, with a green rind and watery flesh that is bright red when ripe and dotted with black seeds.
She spat the seeds out while eating her watermelon on the porch.
A ripe watermelon should sound hollow when you tap it.
- 2A trailing plant of the species Citrullus lanatus, cultivated for its large, melon-like fruit.
Farmers plant watermelon in sandy soil after the last frost.
The watermelon needs plenty of warmth and water to set fruit.
Note
A plain compound, water plus melon, that English has used since the 1610s. As a crop it is usually treated as a mass noun, with no article: farmers plant watermelon, grow watermelon. A single plant in the field is countable and takes a or the: the watermelon needs warmth to set fruit.
- 3A pinkish-red color resembling the flesh of ripe watermelon, also known as watermelon pink.
The designer chose watermelon for the collection's main color.
Her lipstick was a vivid watermelon that brightened her whole face.
- 4A slang term for a breast, especially that of an adult or adolescent woman.
He made a crude remark about the new girl's watermelons at the bar.
She crossed her arms to hide her watermelon from the leering crowd.
Note
Crude slang that works by comparing the body to the fruit. It belongs to jokes and leering remarks, not to any neutral talk about the body, and using it says more about the speaker's attitude than about anatomy. In medical, educational or polite settings, the word to use is breast.
- 5A derogatory term for an environmentalist with socialist leanings; an ecosocialist.
The columnist branded the green party's founder a watermelon hiding red politics.
Talk-show hosts warned that watermelons had taken over the climate movement.
Note
A political insult built on the fruit's two colors: green on the outside, red on the inside. The joke is that someone who looks eco-friendly is socialist underneath. Opponents apply the label as a sneer, so it belongs in quoting or reporting a polemic, not in neutral description. Robin McKie, reviewing Merchants of Doubt in 2010, presents it as part of a "distorted view" of environmentalists.
- 6A project presented as on schedule even though some of its parts are actually falling behind.
By month three the rollout had become a classic watermelon.
Auditors found three watermelons hiding behind cheerful status reports.
Note
Project managers borrowed the image behind the political insult: green on the status report, red underneath. The word often appears in fixed phrases such as watermelon reporting and the watermelon effect. Its users prescribe transparency as the cure. As Marc Löffler put it in 2011, if a project's status is transparent, "the watermelons can't arise."
Practice
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Origin
First recorded in the 1610s as a compound of "water" and "melon". The senses referring to environmentalists and behind-schedule projects come from the idea of appearing green (eco-friendly or on schedule) on the outside while being red (socialist or behind schedule) hidden inside, like the fruit.