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Glite Dictionary
corncob

corncob

4 3.1
A hard, round center inside an ear of corn that holds the kernels
  • noun
  • /ˈkɔrnˌkɑb/
translation icon : mazorca
  • Over and over in Morris's fiction and autobiographical stories, the corncobs identify and characterize a way of life.
  • use a corncob
  • ground corncob

There's a man in the boat and he has a, a corncob pipe and it's sitting in his lips.

Examples

  • In the farmhouse, behind the kitchen stove, was a basket of the corncobs shown in the photograph.

    Academic text (1994)

  • We used corncobs for noses and hickory nuts for eyes.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • "Unfortunately, ground corncob is quite expensive for the average dairy farmer," says Schmidtmann.

    Academic text (1994)

  • We walked all around the yard examining all we could; she always smoked a corncob pipe, which she carried everywhere with her.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Although they use a corncob for scraping and consolidating the clay, they tend not to use it for decorative effect.

    Academic text (2007)

  • We all sat up straighter and reached for the baby corncobs and the salsa verde.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • His was a stingy little truck, dusty and black, with narrow, balding tires and corncobs and empty fertilizer sacks in the rear.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • The farmer showed the children how to remove the kernels from the corncob after they picked it from the field.

  • After enjoying the corn, we fed the leftover corncob to the chickens in the yard.

  • The craftsman used a dried corncob to make a unique handle for his handmade knife.

Synonyms

cob
vscorncob
20 3.6

The hard central part of an ear of corn where kernels grow

focuses on its hard cylindrical shape rather than woody texture
corn cob
vscorncob
3 1.3

A hard middle part of an ear of corn that holds the kernels

is written as one word rather than two

How Processed

masa
3 4.2
lye hominy
  • Specialized
9.9
hominy
  • US
2 8.7
corncob
4 3.1

Surface Forms

corncob singular
corncobs plural

Morphology

corncob = corn + cob (transparent) = corn + cob

The meaning is a straightforward combination of 'corn' + 'cob' referring to the core of an ear of corn, easily inferable by learners.

Etymology

The word corncob is made of two parts: corn, meaning 'grain', and cob, meaning 'lump' or 'head'. So a corncob is the hard 'lump' or core that holds the kernels of the corn.