pumpkin: [17] Much as they look as though they had been blown up with a pump, pumpkins have no etymological connection with pumps. Greek pépōn denoted a variety of melon that was not eaten until it was fully ripe (the word was a noun use of the adjective pépōn ‘ripe’). Latin took it over as pepō, and passed it on to Old French as *pepon. Through a series of vicissitudes this evolved via popon to early modern French pompon. This was borrowed into English in the 16th century, and soon altered to pompion; and in the 17th century the native diminutive suffix -kin was grafted on to it to produce pumpkin.
