acorn

Etymology

From Middle English acorn, an alteration (after corn) of earlier *akern, from Old English æcern (“acorn, oak-mast”), from Proto-Germanic *akraną, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ógeh₂ (“berry”). Cognate with Scots aicorn, Saterland Frisian Äkkene, Tocharian B oko (“fruit”), Welsh eirin (“plums”), Breton irin (“plum”), Irish airne (“sloe”), Lithuanian úoga, Russian я́года (jágoda, “berry”), etc.

noun

  1. The fruit of the oak, being an oval nut growing in a woody cup or cupule.
  2. (nautical) A cone-shaped piece of wood on the point of the spindle above the vane, on the mast-head.
  3. (zoology) See acorn-shell.
  4. The glans penis.
    The Romans, likewise, represented the uncouth Priapus—the god of rustic fertility and sexual assault—as comically well endowed, with his acorn showing. 2021, A. W. Strouse, Form & Foreskin: Medieval Narratives of Circumsion
  5. (slang, usually in the plural) A testicle.

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