overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

corn.

Any cereal plant (or its grain) that is the main crop or staple of a country or region.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkɔːn/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɔɹn/Canada, US/ˈkoːn/Australia
  1. Any cereal plant (or its grain) that is the main crop or staple of a country or region.

    Commonwealth · uncountable · usually
  2. Maize, a grain crop of the species Zea mays.

    Australia · Canada · New-Zealand · US · uncountable · usually
  3. A single seed of a food crop, especially a cereal grass crop.

    uncountable · usually
    He paid her the nominal fee of two corns of barley.
  4. A small, hard particle.

    uncountable · usually
  5. A type of granular snow formed by repeated melting and refreezing, often in mountain spring conditions.

    uncountable · usually
  6. Bullets, ammunition, and charge and discharge of firearms.

    Jamaica · Multicultural-London-English · slang · uncountable · usually
  7. Money.

    Jamaica · slang · uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ǵerh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-nóm Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂-nós Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm Proto-Germanic *kurną Proto-West Germanic *korn Old English corn Middle English corn English corn Inherited from Middle English corn, from Old English corn, from Proto-West Germanic *korn, from Proto-Germanic *kurną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm (“grain; worn-down”), from *ǵerh₂- (“grow old, mature”). Cognate with Dutch koren, German Low German Koorn, German Korn, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish korn; see also Albanian grurë, Russian зерно́ (zernó), Czech zrno, Latin grānum and Lithuanian žirnis. Doublet of grain, gram, granum, and grao. The sense maize (Zea mays) is an ellipsis of Indian corn that developed in 18th century North America.

verb/ˈkɔːn/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɔɹn/Canada, US/ˈkoːn/Australia
  1. To granulate; to form (a substance) into grains.

    Canada · US · transitive
    to corn gunpowder
  2. To preserve using coarse salt, e.g. corned beef.

    Canada · US · transitive
  3. To provide (an animal) with corn (typically maize; or, in Scotland, oats) for feed.

    Canada · US · transitive
    Corn the horses.
  4. To render intoxicated.

    obsolete · transitive
    ale strong enough to corn one
  5. To shoot up with bullets as by a shotgun (corn).

    Jamaica · Multicultural-London-English · slang · transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ǵerh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-nóm Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂-nós Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm Proto-Germanic *kurną Proto-West Germanic *korn Old English corn Middle English corn English corn Inherited from Middle English corn, from Old English corn, from Proto-West Germanic *korn, from Proto-Germanic *kurną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵr̥h₂nóm (“grain; worn-down”), from *ǵerh₂- (“grow old, mature”). Cognate with Dutch koren, German Low German Koorn, German Korn, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish korn; see also Albanian grurë, Russian зерно́ (zernó), Czech zrno, Latin grānum and Lithuanian žirnis. Doublet of grain, gram, granum, and grao. The sense maize (Zea mays) is an ellipsis of Indian corn that developed in 18th century North America.

noun/ˈkɔːn/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɔɹn/Canada, US/ˈkoːn/Australia
  1. A type of callus, usually on the feet or hands.

    transitive
  2. An inflammatory disease of a horse's hoof, at the caudal part of the sole.

    transitive
  3. Skin hyperplasia with underlying fibroma between both digits of cattle.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱer- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ ? Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂-der. Proto-Italic *kornū Latin cornū̆ Latin cornua Vulgar Latin *corna Old French cornebor. Middle English corne English cornInherited from Middle English corne, from Old French corn (modern French cor), from Latin cornū. Doublet of corno, cornu, and horn.

noun/ˈkɔːn/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɔɹn/Canada, US/ˈkoːn/Australia
  1. Something (e.g., acting, humour, music, or writing) which is deemed old-fashioned or intended to induce emotion.

    Canada · US · transitive · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From corny.

noun/ˈkɔːn/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɔɹn/Canada, US/ˈkoːn/Australia
  1. pornography; porn

    Internet · euphemistic · transitive · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Rhyming euphemism for porn, and with influence from the emoji substitute 🌽.

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

corn has 4 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

corn studiocorn workshello, corn

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.