kukuruz

From German Kukuruz.

kukuruz (uncountable)

1. (rare, in German or Austro-Hungarian context) Maize.
   • 1845, Ida, Countess Hahn-Hahn, anonymous translator, “Letter IV. To My Sister.”, in Letters of a German Countess; Written During Her Travels in Turkey, Egypt, the Holy Land, Syria, Nubia, &c. in 1843–4. , volume I, London: Henry Colburn, , →OCLC, pages 82 and 94:

     Here is grown some kukuruz, there stands a walnut-tree, yonder a whole thicket of elder, and there a thorn hedge, inclosing what looks something like a kitchen-garden, and all wearing an aspect of decay and neglect. […] What was his breakfast?—a raw head of kukuruz:—his dinner?—grapes, so unripe that they were like green peas.

   • 1850, [József] Eötvös, translated by Otto Wenckstern, chapter I, in The Village Notary; a Romance of Hungarian Life. , volume I, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, , →OCLC, page 2:

     A boundless extent of pasturage, now and then diversified by a broken frame over a well, or a few storks that promenade round a half dried up swamp; bad fields, whose crops of kukuruz and wheat are protected by God only, and by that degree of bodily fatigue to which even a thief is exposed;—[…]:—such were the sights upon which you closed your eyes, and such, indeed, are the sights which you behold on awaking.

   • 1864, [Anne Manning], The Interrupted Wedding. A Hungarian Tale. , London: Griffith and Farran, , →OCLC, pages 201 (Life in a Pusta), 219 (The Re-union), and 231 (Off at last):

     Little dainties were offered him which had hitherto been kept out of sight—cakes made of sprouted wheat-ears and called notis—and cakes of kukuruz-dough kneaded with buttermilk, and considered delicious. […] “What say you to a nice mess of kukuruz?” […] She provisioned it with some flitches of bacon, several bags of kukuruz, and a cask of red Buda wine; […]

   • 1901 July, Carl Bücher, translated by S Morley Wickett, “A Historical Survey of Industrial Systems”, in Industrial Evolution , New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, page 159:

     With a rather heavy expenditure of labour the peasant cultivates his field of maize, and with his handmill grinds the kukuruz meal used by him in baking mamaliga, his chief article of food, which resembles polenta.

   • 1912, Lion Phillimore, In the Carpathians, London: Constable & Company Limited, →OCLC, page 253:

     The hot kukuruz with cold milk was excellent, and we told Leopold to offer our visitors some. He translated the reply with his mouth full of kukuruz.

   • 1928, Phyllis Bottome, “Michel”, in Strange Fruit: Stories, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company;  , →OCLC, part I, page 258:

     Number six won’t yield fruit—always runs to blossom like a young girl to ribbons! The Herr Baron said to take Number seven apple tree and graft it onto the one by the gate. He’s a young sheep’s head! No, I shall tell him I have done it; but the apple tree by the kukuruz bed is better, that will I graft and not the other! So I shall save both respect and apples!

   • 1968, William Fennerton, chapter 8, section 5, in The Lucifer Cell, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN, pages 282–283:

     The kukuruz and peppers strung across artfully darkened beams had languidly swayed in the warm air that rose from the open charcoal grill.

Unknown, but perhaps from Ottoman Turkish قوقوروز (kukuruz, “maize”), from Albanian kokërrëz, from kokërr (“bead, pellet, grain”).

First attested as kukuruza 'buckwheat, Fagopyrum' in 17th-century Ivan Belostenec's Gazophylacium. Actual maize was introduced to Croatia from Southern Europe around 1611,^[1] and soon spread further into Balkans. In modern form and meaning since 1727^[2]

• IPA^(key): /kukǔruz/
• Hyphenation: ku‧ku‧ruz

kukùruz m (Cyrillic spelling куку̀руз)

1. corn
2. maize

• kukurúza

• → German: Kukuruz
  • → English: kukuruz
• → Hungarian: kukorica

“kukuruz”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2024