How did fruits get their names?
The names of many fruits are derived from foreign languages, both ancient and modern. Sometimes it is quite interesting to learn how certain names began.
For an example take a word like gooseberry, it has nothing to do with geese. It was originally gorseberry. In Saxon, gorst means rough, and this berry hot its name because it grows on a rough or thorny shrub.
Raspberry comes from the German verb raspen, which means to rub together or rub as with a file. The marks on this berry were thought to resemble a file.
Strawberry is a corruption of “strayberry”,and was so named because of the way runner from this plant stray in all directions.
The Cranberry was once called the “craneberry” because the slender stalks resembles the long legs and neck of the crane
The term Grape is the English equivalent of the Italian grappo, and the Dutch and French grappe, all of which mean a “bunch”.
Melon is the Greek word for Apple, while tomato is the West Indian name for love-apple.
Do you know? Tomato is classified as fruit by Botanists. But Horticulurtist, however, classify them as vegetables. Most people consider tomatoes to be vegetable, because they are used in much the same as many other vegetables