melon

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of several varieties of two related vines (Cucumis melo or Citrullus lanatus) widely cultivated for their edible fruit.
2. n. The fruit of any of these plants, having a hard rind and juicy flesh.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A herbaceous succulent trailing annual plant, Cucumis Melo, natural order Cucurbitaceæ, or its fruit, the muskmelon. The plant is not known in a wild state, but its origin was referred by De Candolle to the region of the southern Caspian. It has been cultivated from time immemorial in the hot countries of the East, the melons of Persia being specially celebrated, and is now planted wherever there is sufficient summer heat to mature its fruit. The latter at its best is very rich and highly flavored. It is an ellipsoid or globular pepo, the edible part of which is the inner layer of the pericarp, the stringy and watery placentæ with the seeds being rejected. The melon is grown in numberless varieties, as the cantaloup, the nutmeg, etc. In the United States this fruit, in all its forms, is known as muskmelon—melon being applied indifferently to it and the watermelon, or even by preference to the latter. The melon of Numbers xi. 5 is thought by some to have been the watermelon (see def. 2). See cantaloup and Cucumis.
2. n. The watermelon, Citrullus vulgaris.
3. n. A melon-shell.
4. n. A hemispherical mass of blubber taken from the top of the head of the black-fish, grampus, and related cetaceans; melon-blubber. The melon reaches from the spout-hole to the end of the nose, and from the top of the head down to the upper jaw.
5. n. Same as pademelon.

Wiktionary

1. n. chemistry The result of heptazine being polymerized with the tri-s-triazine units linked through an amine (NH) link.
2. n. Any of various fruits of the family Cucurbitaceae grown for food, generally not including the cucumber.
3. n. A light pinkish orange colour, like that of some melon flesh.
4. n. in the plural, slang Breasts.
5. n. slang The head.
6. adj. Of a light pinkish orange colour, like that of melon flesh.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) The juicy fruit of certain cucurbitaceous plants, as the muskmelon, watermelon, and citron melon; also, the plant that produces the fruit.
2. n. (Zoöl.) A large, ornamental, marine, univalve shell of the genus Melo.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of numerous fruits of the gourd family having a hard rind and sweet juicy flesh
2. n. any of various fruit of cucurbitaceous vines including: muskmelons; watermelons; cantaloupes; cucumbers.