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gherkin.

A small cucumber, often pickled whole.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɡɝkɪn/General-American/ˈɡɜːkɪn/Received-Pronunciation
  1. A small cucumber, often pickled whole.

  2. Pickled cucumber regardless of size; a pickle

    Ireland · UK
  3. The penis.

    slang
Where this word comes from

From a form of Dutch gurk, an archaic variant of augurk (“small pickled cucumber”), from Low German, from Middle Low German agurke, augurke, probably via Slavic (compare Polish ogórek), from Byzantine Greek ἀγγούριον (angoúrion, “cucumber”). The underlying Dutch form may be a diminutive (gurkijn) or perhaps more probably the plural (gurken), which was then associated with the English suffix -kin (itself incidentally from Dutch or Low German). Compare German Gurke.

name/ˈɡɝkɪn/General-American/ˈɡɜːkɪn/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Alternative letter-case form of Gherkin.

    alt-of
Where this word comes from

From a form of Dutch gurk, an archaic variant of augurk (“small pickled cucumber”), from Low German, from Middle Low German agurke, augurke, probably via Slavic (compare Polish ogórek), from Byzantine Greek ἀγγούριον (angoúrion, “cucumber”). The underlying Dutch form may be a diminutive (gurkijn) or perhaps more probably the plural (gurken), which was then associated with the English suffix -kin (itself incidentally from Dutch or Low German). Compare German Gurke.

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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.