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Learn more about "Corn"

Corn

Corn is an English word dating back to Anglo-Saxon times or earlier meaning cereal or grain. It commonly refers, in modern American usage, to Indian corn, that is, maize, but can also refer to wheat, barley, rye and also cornstarch.

Early Modern English uses

Shakespeare frequently refers to ''corn'', for example

It was a lover and his lass, With a hey and a ho and a hey, nonny-no, That o’er the green corn field did pass, In spring time ... As You Like It, Act V, Scene 3

The second verse goes on

Between the acres of the rye, With a hey and a ho and a hey, nonny-no, These pretty country-folks would lie, In spring time ...

indicating the meaning of the corn in this case. The 1611 Authorized King James Version of the Bible similarly uses ''corn'' on many occasions, such as which has

And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands

where modern US versions have for example

In fact, all the world came to Joseph to obtain rations of grain, for famine had gripped the whole world New American Bible

The early nineteenth century British Corn Laws referred to the importation of wheat.
To corn, meant, among other things, to sprinkle with grains of salt, whence the term corned beef. It also meant to concentrate into grains; see History of gunpowder.

Particular sorts of corn

The word was often used to signify any small edible grain. Thus '''peppercorn''' was used for the fruit of black pepper and '''barleycorn''' for a grain of barley. After the colonization of America, maize was introduced to the English-speaking world, and originally known as '''Indian corn''', a term which was then increasingly often shortened to '''corn''' in America, but not in the UK, where the original meanings were retained.