APPLE GRAIN

The word pomegranate has fantastic and metaphoric origins. Originally spelled poumgarnet, this is a combination of two French words, pome grenate. That phrase, however, goes back to Latin as a whole, as pomum granatum, or "apple with many seeds", which is basically what a pomegranate is. But the plot thickens. Pomum ("apple") is from the Proto-Italic word poomos, which meant "fruit" in general and is said to be from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European word hpoem, "to take off", since a "fruit" is "taken off" a tree. The granatum part of pomum granatum meant "having seeds", and that goes back to the earlier Latin word grenate, meaning "having grains", since grains have seeds. This is a conjugated form of granum, or "grain" in general, which in turn goes to the Proto-Indo-European root greno, the source of everything from the Slavic to Germanic words for "grain". Anyway, etymologically speaking, we can see that pomegranate​ truly means "to take off grain".