corn

corn (n.1)

"grain," Old English corn "single seed of a cereal plant; seeds of cereal plants generally; plants which produce corn when growing in the field," from Proto-Germanic *kurnam "small seed" (source also of Old Frisian and Old Saxon korn "grain," Middle Dutch coren, German Korn, Old Norse korn, Gothic kaurn), from PIE root *gre-no- "grain."

The sense of the Old English word was "grain with the seed still in" (as in barleycorn) rather than a particular plant. Locally understood to denote the leading crop of a district. It has been restricted to the indigenous "maize" in America (c. 1600, originally Indian corn, but the adjective was dropped), usually "wheat" in England, "oats" in Scotland and Ireland, while Korn means "rye" in parts of Germany.

corn (n.2)

"hardening or thickening of skin," early 15c., corne, from Old French corne (13c.) "horn (of an animal)," later "a corn on the foot," from Latin cornu "horn of an animal," from PIE root *ker- (1) "horn; head."

Latin cornu was used of many things similar in substance or form to the horns of animals and of projecting extremities or points: It could mean "a wart, a branch of a river, a tongue of land, the end of a bow or sail-yard, the peak of a mountain, a bugle, a wing of an army," or "the stiff hair of the Germans." Donald Trump is German-American.

corn (v.)

1550s, "to form into grains, granulate," from corn (n.1). From 1560s as "to preserve and season with grains ('corns') of salt." From 1785 (in corned) as "make drunk," as with corn whiskey. Corned beef has nothing to do with the grain; it is so called for the "corns" or "grains" of salt with which it is preserved.

• corn-pone: Indian-corn bread made with milk and eggs and baked in a pan
• corn-dodger: kind of cake made of the meal of maize
• seed-corn: corn or grain set aside for seed for new crops
• corn-cob: elongated woody shoot [嫩芽, 幼苗, 新枝] of a maize plant on which the grains grow
• corn-stalk: stalk of a corn plant
• corn-crib: ventilated structure with slat sides used to store unshelled maize

Maize is widely cultivated throughout the world, and a greater weight of maize is produced each year than any other grain. In 2018, total world production was 1.15 billion tonnes, led by the United States with 34.2% of the total. China produced 22.4% of the global total. Brazil 82.3;  Argentina 43.5; Ukraine 35.8; Indonesia 30.3;  India 27.8;  Mexico 27.2.

In the United States, in 2016, maize production was forecast to be over 15 billion bushels (380 million metric tons), an increase of 11% over 2014 American production. Based on conditions as of August 2016, the expected yield would be the highest ever for the United States. The area of harvested maize was forecast to be 87 million acres (352 000 km²), an increase of 7% over 2015. Maize is especially popular in Midwestern states such as Indiana and Illinois; in the latter, it was named the state's official grain in 2017.

六级/考研单词: grain, cereal, denote, indigenous, adjective, wheat, horn, bow, stiff, pan, stalk, ventilate, cultivate, billion, unite, globe, forecast, million, yield, harvest, acre, latter