Dictionary

lemon drop en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈlɛmən dɹɒp/ (UK)
• /ˈlɛmən dɹɑp/ (US)
• (US) audio

Etymology

Literally lemon + drop. From the combination of lemon (referring to the flavor of the candy) and drop (referring to the shape of the candy, often a small, smooth, oval, or circular shape). The word lemon Inherited from Middle English lymon, from Old French lymon (“citrus”), and the word drop comes from Middle English droppe, Middle English drope (“small quantity of liquid; small amount of something; speck”), from Old English dropa (“a drop”).

Meanings

1. A yellow lemon-flavored and lemon-shaped candy.
   • Dill had hit upon a foolproof plan to make Boo Radley come out at no cost to ourselves (place a trail of lemon drops from the back door to the front yard and he’d follow it, like an ant). 1960 July 11, Harper Lee, chapter 15, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:
   • I remember those times. The corner bodega shops with the quarter waters and yellow lemon drops and the now and later, Do you remember then? 2013, Yanatha Desouvre, Walk Through This Journey: Volume One, →ISBN:
2. A cocktail of vodka with lemon juice and sugar.
   • “Honeybee. Sorry. Breakfast beers turned into lunchtime lemon drops, and next thing you know, we were three dinner-tinis deep, and then we saw that stray cat again, so obviously we had to follow it and... Whoa!” “Hey, Wolf. [singsongy] Welcome home. [chuckles]” “I must be drunker than I thought. 'Cause there are two of you and it looks like we're missing an entire wall. Whoa! [grunts] I'm okay. This freezing, extremely hard ice broke my fall.” 2025 June 19, Matt Lawton, “Super Smash Lovers Adventure” (12:02 from the start), in The Great North, season 5, episode 16, spoken by Wolf Tobin (Will Forte):
3. A variety of mangosteen, especially Garcinia intermedia, or sometimes the similar Garcinia madruno.

Forms

Deriveds

lemon drop martini