from
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
pumpkin
n 1: a coarse vine widely cultivated for its large pulpy round
orange fruit with firm orange skin and numerous seeds;
subspecies of Cucurbita pepo include the summer squashes
and a few autumn squashes [syn: {pumpkin}, {pumpkin vine},
{autumn pumpkin}, {Cucurbita pepo}]
2: usually large pulpy deep-yellow round fruit of the squash
family maturing in late summer or early autumn
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Pumpkin \Pump"kin\, n. [For older pompion, pompon, OF. pompon,
L. pepo, peponis, Gr. ?, properly, cooked by the sun, ripe,
mellow; -- so called because not eaten till ripe. Cf. {Cook},
n.] (Bot.)
A well-known trailing plant ({Cucurbita pepo}) and its fruit,
-- used for cooking and for feeding stock; a pompion.
[1913 Webster]
{Pumpkin seed}.
(a) The flattish oval seed of the pumpkin.
(b) (Zool.) The common pondfish.
[1913 Webster]
from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
pumpkin
backup pumpkin
patch pumpkin
pumpkineer
pumpking
<jargon> A humourous term for the {token} - the object
(notional or real) that gives its possessor (the "pumpking" or
the "pumpkineer") exclusive access to something, e.g. applying
{patches} to a master copy of {source} (for which the pumpkin
is called a "patch pumpkin").
Chip Salzenberg <[email protected]> wrote:
David Croy once told me once that at a previous job, there was
one tape drive and multiple systems that used it for backups.
But instead of some high-tech exclusion software, they used a
low-tech method to prevent multiple simultaneous backups: a
stuffed pumpkin. No one was allowed to make backups unless
they had the "backup pumpkin".
(1999-02-23)