بطيخ

Where it comes from

Presumably borrowed from Aramaic, attested in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic בטיח (*baṭṭīḥ) and Classical Syriac ܦܲܛܝܼܚܵܐ (paṭṭīḥā), and a broken plural Hebrew אֲבַטִּיחַ (ʾăḇaṭṭī́aḥ). While it has been theoretized to have been acquired in Semitic via Egyptian bddw-kꜣ (“watermelon”) from sub-Saharan Africa, there is an explanation as an Iranian borrowing equivalent to Persian بیدخت (bêdoxt, “Venus”), which is the known Akkadian 𒂗 (bēlu, “master; Bel, Baal”) + Persian دخت (doxt, “daughter”), literally “daughter of Baal”, a reinterpretation of the feminine form of the Baʿal god found as ܒܝܠܬܝ (bēltī), ܒܠܬܝ (beltī, “Venus”) in Classical Syriac, equalling بَعْلَة (baʕla, “mistress”). Like in general food items can be reused to denote body parts, especially those viewed sexually, and in Eastern languages specifically the names of fruits come to mean “vulva”, as well-known South Levantine Arabic تِينة (tīne, “fig”), Armenian թուզ (tʻuz, “fig”), Hebrew רִמּוֹן (rimmṓn, “pomegrenate”) in Song of Solomon 7:12 and 8:2, here in turn the meaning of a melon would be secondarily transferred from representations of fertility goddesses. This is corroborated by lexicographers mentioning a Himyaritic word بَيْدَخَة (baydaḵa, “plump, chubby”, applied to women).