acorn

a·corn  (kôrn, krn)

n.

The fruit of an oak, consisting of a single-seeded, thick-walled nut set in a woody, cuplike base.

---

[Middle English akorn, from Old English æcern.]

Word History: A thoughtful glance at the word acorn might produce the surmise that it is made up of oak and corn, especially if we think of corn in its sense of "a kernel or seed of a plant," as in peppercorn. The fact that others thought the word was so constituted partly accounts for the present form acorn. Here we see the workings of the process of linguistic change known as folk etymology, an alteration in form of a word or phrase so that it resembles a more familiar term mistakenly regarded as analogous. Acorn actually goes back to Old English æcern, "acorn," which in turn goes back to the Indo-European root *g-, meaning "fruit, berry."

---

acorn

Noun

the fruit of the oak tree, consisting of a smooth nut in a cuplike base [Old English æcern]

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

acorn - fruit of the oak tree: a smooth thin-walled nut in a woody cup-shaped base acorn cup, cupule - cup-shaped structure of hardened bracts at the base of an acorn oak tree, oak - a deciduous tree of the genus Quercus; has acorns and lobed leaves; "great oaks grow from little acorns" fruit - the ripened reproductive body of a seed plant

Translations

acorn [ˈeɪkɔːn] n → bellota

acorn [ˈeɪkɔːn] n → gland m

acorn [ˈeɪkɔːn] n → Eichel f

acorn [ˈeɪkɔːn] n → ghianda