Personal Blogs

French for grapefruit, and the name of the chief character in the book Monsieur Pamplemousse by Michael Bond, author also of Paddington Bear.

I don’t know why but the word suddenly popped into my head, and it made we wonder (for some reason) what grapefruit is in other European languages.

Looking at a few, there are basically two strands

1. Many languages, such as German, Danish, Russian, Gaelic ohave borrowed the English word, and that seems to have arisen from the fruits growing in clusters like grapes. I looked at some images and they really do, so the etymology is plausible.

2. Other languages have borrowed from Dutch pompelmoes = ‘fat lemon’, hence pamplemousse and Italian pompelmo etc.

I love grapefruit but I can’t really eat them nowadays because they might interfere with my medication.