Cocurbits

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Plants of the gourd family, such as squashes, pumpkins, cucumbers and melons, that typically grow as trailing vines ; the rounded flask forming the lower part of an old distillation apparatus
2. Members of the gourd family of vining plants, including pumpkins, squashes and melons ; gourd-shaped vessels used as the boiling chamber in a traditional alembic still
3. Vine-growing plants related to squash, cucumber and melon, which bear fleshy fruits ; round-bodied containers in which liquids were heated during old-style distilling

Etymology: The name of the plant family that includes pumpkins, melons, squashes and cucumbers comes from the Latin "cucurbita," meaning "gourd" or "pumpkin." Its exact root is uncertain. It may be linked to "curvus," "curved," though this is not firmly established, and the Latin word was used for several kinds of hollow, bulbous fruit. The English term was also applied to a glass vessel with a rounded body and a narrow neck, used in alchemy and early chemistry for distillation. The vessel was named after the gourd because of its shape. The botanical sense, for the plant family, came later, as scientists sorted plants into families. The same Latin root therefore names both a squash and an old laboratory flask.