rough lemon

noun

1. a variety of lemon that has orange-yellow, rough-skinned fruit and is used as a rootstock for the cultivation of other citrus fruits.

Word History and Origins

Origin of rough lemon¹

First recorded in 1895–1900

Example Sentences

Plant a lime seed and up comes a kumquat, or, with equal odds, a Seville orange, not to mention a rough lemon or a tangerine.

From The New Yorker

“This part of the tree is called the rootstock. It is the root and trunk of a rough lemon tree. Believe it or not, every type of tree that we produce here begins its life as a rough lemon tree.”

From Literature

“The rough lemon is totally worthless in the supermarket, and yet there is no more valuable tree out here in the nursery.”

From Literature

“If you look out here, you’ll see that all of these trees are the same. On each there is one scion grafted onto a rough lemon rootstock That scion is a new type of tangerine called the Golden Dawn.”

From Literature

“If we don’t, the Golden Dawns are dead, and we got ourselves a thousand rough lemon trees.”

From Literature