There are many kinds of persimmons, from all over the world. There was already a word for them (diospyros) when new colonists in the Americas encountered a new type in Virginia, but they borrowed a Powhatan word to classify it: pichamins, which also took the form of pushemins, and pasimenan, all of which described the fruit/flower and had a literal meaning of "dry fruit". Powhatan is part of the Algonquian family of languages, and the -imen- part of the word seems to go back to a common Proto-Algonquian root, imin, which meant "fruit" or "berry", possibly going all the way back to Proto-Algic mene, also "berry" (Proto-Algic is a little-researched and hypothesized tongue encompassing Algonquian and several lesser families). The pas- prefix and -an suffix like as not took a similar route. Usage of persimmon peaked around 1940.
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AUTHORAdam Aleksic, a freshman studying linguistics and government at Harvard University, has been described as the internet's sixth most famous etymologist. He also has disturbing interests in words, vexillology, geography, board games, limericks, and law.
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