subs. (old).—1. See quot.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. “POMPKIN, a man or woman of Boston, America, from the number of POMPKINS raised and eaten by the people of that country. POMPKINS-HIVE, for Boston and its dependencies.”
2. (common).—The head: see CRUMPET and TIBBY.
3. (American).—The female pudendum: see MONOSYLLABLE: whence PUMPKIN-COVER = the pubic hair: see FLEECE. [From the shape of a pumpkin seed.]
SOME (or BIG) PUMPKINS (or AS BIG AS PUMPKINS), phr. (American).—A high appreciation: cf. SMALL POTATOES (q.v.).
18[?]. Pickings from the Picayune, 237 [DE VERE]. I swow, my son Fred is a fine fellow; you may axe every rouster on the levee, and I’ll be hanged if they don’t tell you he is SOME PUMPKINS to hum.
1848. RUXTON, Life in the Far West, 178. Afore I left the settlements I know’d a white gal, and she was SOME PUNKINS. Ibid., 41. The biggest kind of PUNKIN at that.
1852. BRISTED, The Upper Ten Thousand, 216. She gave a big ball, and we, being PUNKINS, were of course among the invited. [Note.] A slang expression of young New-York for people of value and consequence.
1855. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), Nature and Human Nature, I. i. It warnt out of character with Franklin, and he was a poor printer boy, nor Washington, and he was only a land-surveyor, and they growed to be ‘SOME PUNKINS’ too.
1871. DE VERE, Americanisms, x. Bostonians … are said to have derived, from their attachment to this vegetable, and the esteem in which it is universally held among them, the phrase SOME PUMPKINS, expressive of high appreciation. Ibid. It is stated, however, by one high in authority among New Englanders, that this explanation of the term is not the true one, although the latter cannot well be stated, because it would offend ears polite. (J. H. Trumbull.)
