- 1西瓜。整顆算 a watermelon；切開來吃的果肉則不加 a，說 some watermelon。瓜皮的英文是 rind。
A watermelon is the big round summer fruit with a hard green skin, bright red flesh inside and black seeds. It is heavy, it is mostly water — which is why it is so cooling — and it is sold in whole ones, halves and slices. Everyone knows this fruit, so the word is completely ordinary.
A few things about how English handles it. It is one word, no space, no . It is countable when you mean the whole fruit ('I bought two watermelons') and uncountable when you mean the flesh you eat ('Do you want some watermelon?'). Watermelon juice is a normal thing to say. The green skin is called the 'rind' — a useful word, and the same word used for the skin of cheese and of bacon.
There is also a figurative use you may meet in news writing, though it is not common in daily speech: calling someone a 'watermelon' means green on the outside, red inside — that is, someone who says they care about the environment but is really a socialist. It is an insult used in political argument. You do not need to use it, but if you see it, now you know why.
From the word’s history
A compound of water + melon, from the 1610s.
由 water（水）加 melon（瓜）組成，1610 年代就有。
組成water + melon. A melon full of water — and that is honest, since a watermelon is about ninety percent water. Many languages built the name the same way: French 'melon d'eau', German 'Wassermelone', Spanish 'melón de agua'.
原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
watermelonnoun/ˈwɔːtəˌmɛlən/
- 1
A plant of the species Citrullus lanatus, bearing a melon-like fruit.
- 2
The fruit of the watermelon plant, having a green rind and watery flesh that is typically bright red when ripe and contains black seeds.
- 3
derogatoryslangAn environmentalist with socialist leanings, an ecosocialist.
- According to this distorted view of life, environmentalists are watermelons – green on the outside, red on the inside – who want to impose regulation, “the slippery slope to socialism”, on the use of tobacco, ozone-destroying chemicals and greenhouse gases.
- 4
A pinkish-red colour, like that of watermelon flesh (also called watermelon pink).
- 5
A project that is presented as on schedule when it actually has parts that are falling behind.
- The nuts and bolts of any project are transparency. If the project status is transparent, the watermelons can’t arise. If anybody is able to get the information, it will be difficult to hide something.
- As a PMO [project management officer], wherever I see watermelon reporting, I encourage the PM [project manager] to be brave and honest enough to ask for help.
- 6
slangA breast, especially that of an adult or adolescent female human.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。