acorn

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“
But, as Dr. Bard well says Of the Vegetable articles of diet the acorn was the principal one.

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Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun The fruit of an oak, consisting of a single-seeded, thick-walled nut set in a woody, cuplike base.
  2. Word History
    A thoughtful glance at the word acorn might produce the surmise that it is made up of oak and corn, especially if we think of corn in its sense of "a kernel or seed of a plant,” as in peppercorn. The fact that others thought the word was so constituted partly accounts for the present form acorn. Here we see the workings of the process of linguistic change known as folk etymology, an alteration in form of a word or phrase so that it resembles a more familiar term mistakenly regarded as analogous. Acorn actually goes back to Old English æcern, "acorn,” which in turn goes back to the Indo-European root *ōg-, meaning "fruit, berry.”

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English akorn, from Old English æcern.

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  1. Early modern English acorn, akorn, eykorn, acron, acquorn, akecorne, oakern, okecorn, okehorne, etc., from late Middle English acorn, akorn, accorne, acorun, ocorn, occorn, okecorne, ackerne, akern, hakern, assibilated achorne, acharne, atcherne, etc. The reg. modern form would be *akern, in Middle English akern (assibilated atcherne, improperly aspirated hakern), the other forms being due to the erroneous notion that the word is a derivative of oak, or a compound of oak (Middle English ook, ok, oc, earlier ac, from Anglo-Saxon āc) and corn (Middle English and Anglo-Saxon corn), or horn (Middle English and Anglo-Saxon horn). A similar error has affected the spelling of the word in other languages. Middle English akern, from Anglo-Saxon æcern, æcirn, an acorn, orig. any fruit of the field, being properly an adjective formed (like silvern from silver) from æcer, a field, acre (see acre), + -n (see -en); = Dutch aker, an acorn, from akker, a field (but now usually eikel, an acorn, from eik, an oak); = Low German ekker, an acorn, from akker, a field (also ek, an acorn, from eke, an oak); = German ecker (after Low German), an acorn, from acker, a field (also eichel, an acorn, from eiche, an oak); = Icelandic akarn, an acorn, from akr, a field (not from eik, an oak); = Norwegian aakorn (also aakonn, aakodn, and akall), from aaker, a field (not from eik, an oak); cf. Swedish ekollon, an acorn, from ek, oak, + ollon, an acorn; = Danish agern, an acorn, from ager, a field (not from eg, an oak); = Goth, akran, fruit in general, from akrs, a field. Thus acorn has nothing to do with either oak or corn.
 

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/ˈeɪkɔrn/
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