melonious

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /məˈləʊni.əs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /məˈloʊni.əs/
• Rhymes: -əʊniəs

Etymology 1

From melon +‎ -ious, likely as a pun on melodious.

Adjective

melonious (comparative more melonious, superlative most melonious) (humorous)

1. Relating to melons.
   • 1909 January 17, “Editorial Points”, in The Los Angeles Times‎^[1], part II, page 4:

     Besides the regular dividends the neat and interesting job of occasionally carving a surplus sandilla is performed, and the metallic chink of the resulting proceeds in the stockholder’s pocket gives forth a highly melonious sound.

   • 1912 August 31, “Watermelons Drip on Town”, in The Los Angeles Times‎^[2], part II, page 1:

     An epidemic of watermelons broke out in Hollywood early yesterday morning. Ten minutes after the melonious assault began the city was freckled with seeds, slippery with shattered rind and literally adrip with the heart’s blood of dozens of huge, over-ripe melons, ammunition which a large-size patch on the outskirts of town had been literally stripped to secure.

2. Resembling or having the characteristics of a melon.
   • 1920 August 10, “The Missouri Watermelon”, in Sikeston Standard‎^[3], page 2:

     The Missouri melon, to put it briefly, is the most melonious of melons.

   • 1986 [1974], Augusto Roa Bastos, translated by Helen Lane, I, the Supreme‎^[4], translation of Yo el Supremo (in Spanish), page 72:

     Only then do I begin to grow a bit drowsy beneath a rain of garden produce, flowers, green vegetables, fruits of every sort, golden oranges, melodious melons, melonious melodies, seeds without equal, marvels of harvests.

   • 2007, Stephen T. Savage, Splattery‎^[5], →ISBN, page 103:

     The Cheese. Shot the breeze. Exchanged unpleasant pleasantries. Said The Severants were right. Hand-to-God, with a knowing nod. Of his giant pumpkinish. Melonious head. His bum tickler. Had him getting sicker.

3. (euphemistic, by extension, chiefly UK) Curvaceous.
   1. (of body parts, especially breasts) Very large.
      • 1987, Thomas B. Morgan, Snyder’s Walk‎^[6], page 59:

        Only occasionally, jacketless in her customary brown or gray silk blouse and ramrod straight in her typing chair, did she reveal superb melonious breasts cantilevered over a trim waist.

      • 1987, Henrietta Garnett, Family Skeletons‎^[7], page 26:

        “But what about all those women? That awful woman with a bottom you said was melonious?”

      • 2004, Carole Matthews, The Sweetest Taboo‎^[8], page 80:

        She is clearly taking in my visible panty line, lack of melonious chest and bottom like a bagful of walnuts. I knew I would hate this bloody place the minute I arrived.

      • 2012 January 7, Janice Turner, “Like the financial bubble, implants will burst”, in The Times, number 70463, London, page 25:

        Or do you reconsider at, say, 65? Then you weigh up having melonious gazongas that seem to belong to a much younger lady against, I’m guessing, sad, empty bags of skin. (Or by then will you have had your face done to match your boobs?)

   2. (of a woman) Very buxom; having large breasts.
      • 1991, Ed Knox, “World of Nookie”, in Men Only‎^[9], volume 56, number 6, Paul Raymond, page 34:

        I have had several letters of complaint from the Haringey Women’s Lesbian Kalashnikov Training and Mouth Painting Centre saying that this column has been prejudiced in favour of girls with enormous breasts to the detriment of their less melonious sisters.

Synonyms

• melonous

Etymology 2

Perhaps from a misconstruction of melodious, under influence from other Latinate adjectives ending -onious; compare commonious.

Adjective

melonious (comparative more melonious, superlative most melonious)

1. (rare) Melodious.
   • 1858 April 3, The Musical World‎^[10], volume 36, number 14, page 221:

     KEATING’S COUGH LOZENGES.—A good speech or an effective song cannot be given if the vocal organs are in an unsound condition, or affected with hoarseness or irritation. To remedy the latter, and to produce melonious enunciation, every public character, whether of the Bar, the Senate, or the Pulpit, should have at hand Keating’s Cough Lozenges, which are patronised by the majority of the Imperial Parliament, the Bench, and the leading members of the Operatic Corps.

   • 1888, Henry H. Putnam, The Mariner’s Return‎^[11], Act II, page 14:

     Tilly. 'Rastus, am it yer melonious voice dat speaks dese words?