dried husk
- noun
- /draɪd hʌsk/
- The dried husk of the coconut must be cracked open to reach the fruit inside.
Examples
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Stuck between the petals of sunflowers were the dried husks of bees, looking like small, hairy clumps of mud.
Fiction book (1991) -
Before cooking, it is important to remove the dried husk from the corn kernels.
-
Farmers often separate the grain from the dried husk during the harvest process.
Synonyms
The dry outer covering of a seed or grain that you remove before you eat it
The dry outer covering of seeds that you remove before eating corn
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'dried' (made dry) with 'husk' (the protective outer layer of a seed or fruit), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer it refers to a husk that has lost moisture. This simple adjective + noun composition describes a literal physical state and is cross-linguistically common, making it immediately comprehensible.
Etymology
Dried husk names the dry outer shell of a seed or fruit. Husk is the shell and dried shows it is hard and brittle, and people strip or throw this shell away before eating, so the phrase means 'the outer covering that is removed before eating'.