What fruit is commonly carved into a jack-o’-lantern, also used as a temporary Halloween costume? Pumpkin. Pumpkins are the familiar orange fruit carved with faces for Halloween, and their rounded shape also inspires simple pumpkin costumes.
The jack-o’-lantern tradition developed from older Irish, Scottish, and British customs of hollowing and carving turnips, rutabagas, or mangelwurzels. Immigrants brought these practices to North America, where native pumpkins were larger, softer, and easier to carve.
The name has links to the folklore of Stingy Jack and to “jack-o’-lantern,” an older English term for a will-o’-the-wisp. The term was used for a carved vegetable lantern by 1837, while the association between carved pumpkins and Halloween was recorded in North America by 1866. Turnips remain traditional in parts of the British Isles.