Etymologically
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cucumber

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈkjuːˌkʌmbə/[1]
  • US: /ˈkjuˌkʌmbɚ/[1]

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