corn

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A tall plant that produces yellow grains on a cob; maize.

   The farmer planted rows of corn in the field.

2. 2
   noun

   Any cereal crop or grain that is the main food of a region.

   The country had a poor harvest and little corn to sell.

3. 3
   verb

   To preserve meat with salt.

   They corned the beef so it would keep through the winter.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Corn in the sense “grain” is an Old English word with a root that may be as ancient as farming; it once applied broadly to grain or other small particles, including hail. The unrelated corn meaning a patch of thickened skin appeared in late Middle English and comes from Latin cornu “horn,” referring to its horn-like hardness.

Inherited from Middle English corn, from Old English corn, from Proto-West Germanic *korn, from Proto-Germanic *kurną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm (“grain; worn-down”), from *ǵerh₂- (“grow old, mature”). Cognate with Dutch koren, German Low German Koorn, German Korn, Danish korn, Norwegian Bokmål korn, Norwegian Nynorsk korn and Swedish korn; see also Albanian grurë, Russian зерно́ (zernó), Czech zrno, Latin grānum and Lithuanian žirnis. Doublet of grain, gram, granum, and grao. The sense maize (Zea mays) is an ellipsis of Indian corn that developed in 18th century North America.

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External links

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