corn
UK /ˈkɔːn/ · US /ˈkɔɹn/ noun, verb, proper noun
Also a form of corncob
Forms corns corning corned
- noun (Commonwealth, but not Australia or New Zealand, uncountable) Any cereal plant (or its grain) that is the main crop or staple of a country or region.
- noun (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, uncountable) Maize, a grain crop of the species Zea mays.
- noun A single seed of a food crop, especially a cereal grass crop. “He paid her the nominal fee of two corns of barley.”
- noun A small, hard particle.
- noun (uncountable) A type of granular snow formed by repeated melting and refreezing, often in mountain spring conditions.
- noun (Jamaica, MLE, slang, firearms, uncountable) Bullets, ammunition, and charge and discharge of firearms.
- noun (Jamaica, slang, uncountable) Money.
- verb (US, Canada) To granulate; to form (a substance) into grains. “to corn gunpowder”
- verb (US, Canada) To preserve using coarse salt, e.g. corned beef.
- verb (US, Canada) To provide (an animal) with corn (typically maize; or, in Scotland, oats) for feed. “Corn the horses.”
- verb (transitive, obsolete) To render intoxicated. “ale strong enough to corn one”
- verb (Jamaica, MLE, slang) To shoot up with bullets as by a shotgun (corn).
- noun A type of callus, usually on the feet or hands.
- noun (veterinary medicine) An inflammatory disease of a horse's hoof, at the caudal part of the sole.
- noun (veterinary medicine) Skin hyperplasia with underlying fibroma between both digits of cattle.
- noun (US, Canada) Something (e.g., acting, humour, music, or writing) which is deemed old-fashioned or intended to induce emotion.
- noun (Internet, euphemistic) pornography; porn
- proper noun A surname.
- proper noun A town in Oklahoma.
Synonyms
cereal grain Indian corn corn snow clavus maize Zea mays edible corn corn whiskey corn whisky
Etymology
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, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, 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.
English cornInherited from Middle English corne, from Old French corn (modern French cor), from Latin cornū. Doublet of corno, cornu, and horn.
From corny.
Rhyming euphemism for porn, and with influence from the emoji substitute 🌽.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A thickening of the epidermis at some point, esp. on the toees, by friction or pressure. It is usually painful and troublesome.
- noun A single seed of certain plants, as wheat, rye, barley, and maize; a grain.
- noun The various farinaceous grains of the cereal grasses used for food, as wheat, rye, barley, maize, oats.
- verb To preserve and season with salt in grains; to sprinkle with salt; to cure by salting; now, specifically, to salt slightly in brine or otherwise; as, to corn beef; to corn a tongue.
Etymology [L. cornu horn: cf. F. corne horn, hornlike excrescence. See Horn.]
Etymology [AS. corn; akin to OS. korn, D. koren, G., Dan., Sw., & Icel. korn, Goth. ka, L. granum, Russ. zerno. Cf. Grain, Kernel.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “corn”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details