corncob

---

Pronunciation

• (rhotic) IPA: /ˈkɔɹnkɒb/
• (non-rhotic) IPA: /ˈkɔːnkɒb/
• (America) enPR: kôrnʹkŏb, IPA: [ˈkɔɹnkɑb]

Noun

corncob (plural corncobs)

1. The central cylindrical core of an ear of corn (maize) on which the kernels are attached in rows.
   • 1858, Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The “Breakfast-Table” Series, George Routledge and Sons (1882), page 23 ↗:

     London is like a shelled corncob on the Derby day, and there is not a clerk who could raise the money to hire a saddle with an old hack under it that can sit down on his office-stool the next day without wincing.

   • 1922, ed. Henry Haven Windsor, "Corncob Seen as Source of New Industry", Popular Mechanics, volume XXXVIII, page 765 ↗:

     Six years of persistent research at the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture, has resulted in establishing the fact that a number of interesting and useful by-products can be derived from the humble corncob.

   • 2009, Chika Unigwe, On Black Sisters Street, Random House, ISBN 978-1-4000-6833-3, page 32:

     He bit into a corncob, and Chisom watched him munch with his mouth open, his jaws working the corn like a mini grinding machine.

Translations

• French: rafle
• German: Maisspindel
• Italian: pannocchia, tutolo
• Portuguese: sabugo, espiga
• Russian: сте́ржень кукурузный
• Spanish: olote (Méx.), coronta (Chile), marlo , tusa, zuro

Verb

corncob (corncobs, present participle corncobbing; past and past participle corncobbed)

1. (of turbines and rotor blades) to disintegrate by the blades becoming severed from the axis
2. (US) to destroy, to destruct, to defeat

---

This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003