CUCUMBER

cucumber, cuke

(noun) cylindrical green fruit with thin green rind and white flesh eaten as a vegetable; related to melons

cucumber, cucumber vine, Cucumis sativus

(noun) a melon vine of the genus Cucumis; cultivated from earliest times for its cylindrical green fruit

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Noun

cucumber (plural cucumbers)

A vine in the gourd family, Cucumis sativus.

The edible fruit of this plant, having a green rind and crisp white flesh.

Synonyms

• cuke (informal)

Source: Wiktionary


Cu"cum*ber (k`km-br, formerly kou"km-br), n.Etym: [OE. cucumer, cocumber, cucumber, fr. L. cucmis, gen.cucumeris; cf. OF. cocombre,F. concombre.] (Bot.)

Definition: A creeping plant, and its fruit, of several species of the genus Cucumis, esp. Cucumis sativus, the unripe fruit of which is eaten either fresh or picked. Also, similar plants or fruits of several other genera. See below. Bitter cucumber (Bot.), the Citrullus or Cucumis Colocynthis. SeeColocynth.

– Cucumber beetle. (Zoöl.) (a) A small, black flea-beetle (Crepidodera cucumeris), which destroys the leaves of cucumber, squash, and melon vines. (b) The squash beetle.

– Cucumber tree.(a) A large ornamental or shade tree of the genus Magnolia (M. acuminata), so called from a slight resemblance of its young fruit to a small cucumber. (b) An East Indian plant (Averrhoa Bilimbi) which produces the fruit known as bilimbi.

– Jamaica cucumber, Jerusalem cucumber, the prickly-fruited gherkin (Cucumis Anguria).

– Snake cucumber, a species (Cucumis flexuosus) remarkable for its long, curiously-shaped fruit.

– Squirting cucumber, a plant (Ecbalium Elaterium) whose small oval fruit separates from the footstalk when ripe and expels its seeds and juice with considerable force through the opening thus made. See Elaterium.

– Star cucumber,a climbing weed (Sicyos angulatus) with prickly fruit.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

16 March 2025

SUSPENDED

(adjective) (of undissolved particles in a fluid) supported or kept from sinking or falling by buoyancy and without apparent attachment; “suspended matter such as silt or mud...”; “dust particles suspended in the air”; “droplets in suspension in a gas”


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Coffee Trivia

The first coffee-house in Mecca dates back to the 1510s. The beverage was in Turkey by the 1530s. It appeared in Europe circa 1515-1519 and was introduced to England by 1650. By 1675 the country had more than 3,000 coffee houses, and coffee had replaced beer as a breakfast drink.

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