The word "cucumber” in various European languages

Bezbojnicul:

By request. Looking into it found some interesting patterns:

• purple (Central, Northern and Eastern Europe + Greece?) - possibly ultimately from Medieval Greek "angourion" (said to be from Persian "angarah" [Klein, etc.], but OED seems to regard this as unlikely. A Dutch source says the Greek is from a word for "immature" and that the vegetable originated in northern India and came to Eastern Europe via the Byzantine Empire.- etymonline). Wiktionary says it may be from Proto-Slavic *ogurъkъ.

• orange "cucumber" (Western Europe) - from Latin "cucumerem" (nominative "cucumis"), perhaps from a pre-Italic Mediterranean language.

• light green "krastavica" (Balkans) - from Slavonic "krastavŭ" - "scaby" via Bulgarian "krástavica" probably refering to the aspect of its skin.

• dark green "hiyar" (Muslim countries) - from the Persian "xiyâr" from Middle Persian "xyār". Any idea what it means?

• orangered "pepino" (Portuguese & Spanish) a diminutive of Latin "pepo" (melon, pumpkin), in turn from the Ancient Greek πέπων (pepōn)

• light blue "cetriolo" (Italian) - from the Latin word "citrium" (kind of gourd) via the Latin "citriolum"

• magenta "cularan" (Scottish Gaelic) - earth nut

• red "kornischong" (Luxemburg) - from the French "cornichon" (mening "gherkin"), a diminutive of "corne" meaning "horn", which in turn comes from Latin.

• pink "varung" (Armenia) - An Iranian borrowing from Middle Persian (vātrang), (vātrēng), Persian (bādrang, “a species of cucumber; an orange”), (vārang, “a long crooked cucumber; a large lemon or orange-tree”).

Small text means a regional language (Friulian, Sorbian, Occitan, Megleno-Romanian, etc).

Any corrections welcome.

Also: The map for "orange" 3.0

Later Edit: Updated version for cucumber: http://i.imgur.com/mzYZdKZ.png (v.3)

Collection: european-words - Tags: europe, words, cucumber - Source: reddit.com