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n. 1. a. A small cucumber, especially one used for pickling. b. A pickle made from such a fruit. 2. a. A vine (Cucumis anguria) native to Africa and widely cultivated especially in the West Indies, having prickly fruit often harvested when immature for pickling. b. The fruit of this plant. [Ultimately (via early Modern Dutch gurkijn (Modern Dutch gurkje), diminutive of Dutch gurk, gherkin, aphetic variant of agurk, or possibly via Dutch agurken, plural of agurk, taken in English as a singular a gurken) from Dutch agurk, variant of augurk, ultimately from a Slavic source such as Polish ogórek, partial translation (with diminutive suffix -ek) of Byzantine Greek angourion, watermelon, gherkin, from diminutive of Late Greek angouros, a single grape, bunch of grapes, probably originally meaning "small, unripe fruit," from expressive alteration of Greek aōros, out of season, unripe : A-, not; see A-1 + hōra, season, time; see yēr- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] |
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