lemon

lemon
{{11}}lemon (1) type of citrus fruit, c.1400, lymon, from O.Fr. limon "citrus fruit" (12c.), via Provençal or Italian from Arabic laimun, from Pers. limu(n), generic terms for citrus fruits (Cf. LIME (Cf. lime) (n.2)); cognate with Skt. nimbu "the lime." Slang meaning "a Quaalude" is 1960s, from Lemmon, name of a pharmaceutical company that once manufactured the drug.
{{12}}lemon (2) "worthless thing," 1909, Amer.Eng. slang; from LEMON (Cf. lemon) (1), 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." A pool hall hustle was called a lemon game (1908); while 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.

Etymology dictionary. 2014.

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