melon
/ˈmɛlən
/noun
1The large round fruit of a plant of the gourd family, with sweet pulpy flesh and many seeds: a ripe melon will smell sweet a slice of melon...
- Fruits include the indigenous melons, grapes, mulberries, peaches, apricots, nectarines, and pomegranates, as well as medlars, persimmons, oranges, melons, and sweet lemons.
- They lived with his father and mother, and began growing crops of sweet corn, melons, pomegranates, figs and dates.
- They also love ripe melons and bananas and grapes.
1.1 (melons) informal A woman’s breasts.
2The Old World plant which yields the melon.
- Cucumis melo subsp. melo, family Cucurbitaceae: many varieties.
- The farms of Nixons, Swantons, Alex's, Stranos and Newlands roads are growing a variety of crops including sugar cane, peanuts, tomatoes, melons, pumpkins and maize.
- Other skills, such as cultivating onions, giant leeks, melons, carnations, fuchsias and roses for competition, are honed on allotments.
3 Zoology A waxy mass in the head of dolphins and other toothed whales, thought to focus acoustic signals.The role of ‘acoustic fat’ is best known for dolphins, where it is found only in the mandibular channel and the melon....
- This structure is derived from the melon of other odontocetes, and like the melon, may serve as a sort of acoustic lens.
- The clicks are beamed forward, with the oily melon serving as an acoustic lens and the bony forehead as a reflector.
Origin
Late Middle English: via Old French from late Latin melo, melon-, contraction of Latin melopepo, from Greek mēlopepōn, from mēlon 'apple' + pepōn 'gourd'.