Citron

The citron is a fragrant citrus fruit, botanically classified as Citrus medica by both the Swingle and Tanaka systems. The designation medica given it by Linnaeus is apparently derived from its ancient name "Median or Persian apple" that was reported by Theophrastus, who believed it to be native to Persia or the land of the Medes; there is no relation to medicinal uses of the fruit. Theophrastus notes its smooth sharp thorns, like those of a pear, the very fragrant but inedible 'apple', which keeps moths from clothes, and the fact that "it bears its 'apples' at all season; for when some have been gathered, the flower of others is on the tree and it is ripening others.... This tree, as has been said, grows in Persia and Media." Citron was the first of the citrus fruits to appear in the Mediterranean Basin.

The fruit's name derives ultimately from Latin, citrus, also the origin of the genus name, and as a result it has many similar names in many European languages, e.g. cederat, cédrat, cedro, etc. A source of confusion is that citron or similar words in French, Hungarian, Finnish, Latvian, the West Slavic languages and all Germanic languages but English are false friends, as they actually refer to the lemon. Indeed, into the 16th century, the English name citron included the lemon and perhaps the lime as well. Most other European languages, from Albanian and English to Spanish and Russian, use variants of the word limon.