cucumber

Etymology

The earliest form, inherited from Middle English cucumer, used in the Wycliffite Bible, is apparently borrowed from Latin cucumis (“cucumber”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The forms with b, cocumber and cucumber, appeared in the 15th century, probably in 1440 according to Barnhart,^[3][5][4] by assimilation to Old French cocombre, also coucombre, modern concombre;^[2][5][7][8] Ayto calls the result a blend of the Middle English and the Old French forms.^[4] Skeat considered the b excrescent.^[6] The Old French word itself comes from the Latin one,^[2][8][9] through Old Occitan cogombre according to Klein;^[10] the Latin word is also the source of Italian cocomero, Spanish cohombro and Portuguese cogombro.^[8][10] The Latin word is probably of non-Indo-European origin, perhaps from a pre-Italic Mediterranean language,^[9][8][4][3] and Merriam-Webster compares Ancient Greek σίκυος (síkuos, “cucumber”),^[9] which Klein derives by metathesis from a Hebrew word for the cucumber.^[10] Dictionary.com notes that Old English cucumer, also from Latin, was used before it.^[11] Etymonline says that the word replaced Old English eorþæppla (“earth-apples”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The plant, a creeping vine cultivated for its fruit: about 1384, in the early version of the Wycliffite Bible.^[2][3] The fruit itself is recorded from about 1400, in Lanfranc's Cirurgie.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The form cowcumber was the usual one in the 17th and early 18th centuries,^[2][8][12] and the pronunciation that went with it was still the accepted one in Walker's dictionary;^[2] Ayto notes that the spellings based on French gave the first syllable the sound "cow" until the early 19th century.^[4] In the 1790s "coocumber" was thought pedantic, but some thirty years later "cowcumber" was left to the old-fashioned and uneducated,^[8][2] and the modern spelling counts as an attempt to return to the Latin.^[8] The name was applied to other plants that resemble the cucumber from 1548, in Turner's Names of Herbes,^[2] and in American English to the cucumber tree, a magnolia with small cucumber-shaped fruit, from the late 18th century.^[7][2] The sea cucumber is so called for the shape of some species.^[8][7] The phrase cool as a cucumber, perfectly calm, is recorded before 1732, in a poem by John Gay.^[2][8] In late 17th-century slang a cucumber was a tailor,^[13][2] because tailors took their holidays in summer, when cucumbers ripen and their richest customers were away in the country.^[13] Later slang used it for the penis (1843) and, as rhyming slang, for a number.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1384 – the plant, as cucumer, in the Wycliffite Bible.^[2][3]
• c. 1400 – the fruit.^[2]
• 1440 – the form with b (probable date).^[3]
• 1548 – other plants like the cucumber.^[2]
• 1699 – slang, a tailor.^[2][13]
• before 1732 – cool as a cucumber.^[2]
• 1835 – the American cucumber tree.^[2]
• 1841 – sea cucumber.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The long fruit of a vine of the gourd family, with a thin green rind and crisp white flesh, eaten raw in salads or pickled when young: Slice two cucumbers for the sandwiches.^[14][9][2]
2. The trailing or climbing plant, Cucumis sativus, that bears this fruit.^[14][9][7]
3. Any of various related or similar plants or their fruits, such as the squirting cucumber.^[14][9][7]
4. (US) The cucumber tree, an American magnolia.^[7][2][9]
5. cool as a cucumber: perfectly calm and composed.^[2][7]

Word family

• cucumber tree
• cucumber beetle
• spotted cucumber beetle
• sea cucumber
• squirting cucumber

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
5. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins