corncob

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See also: corn-cob

English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

First sense: corn +‎ cob

Second sense: A tweet by surrealist internet personality "dril," where a man denies being owned so furiously that he transforms into a corncob.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

corncob (plural corncobs)

  1. The central cylindrical core of an ear of corn (maize) on which the kernels are attached in rows.
    • 1858, Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, The “Breakfast-Table” Series, George Routledge and Sons (1882), page 23:
      London is like a shelled corncob on the Derby day, and there is not a clerk who could raise the money to hire a saddle with an old hack under it that can sit down on his office-stool the next day without wincing.
    • 1922, ed. Henry Haven Windsor, "Corncob Seen as Source of New Industry", Popular Mechanics, volume XXXVIII, page 765:
      Six years of persistent research at the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture, has resulted in establishing the fact that a number of interesting and useful by-products can be derived from the humble corncob.
    • 2009, Chika Unigwe, On Black Sisters Street, Random House, →ISBN, page 32:
      He bit into a corncob, and Chisom watched him munch with his mouth open, his jaws working the corn like a mini grinding machine.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

corncob (third-person singular simple present corncobs, present participle corncobbing, simple past and past participle corncobbed)

  1. (of turbines and rotor blades) to disintegrate by the blades becoming severed from the axis
  2. (US) to refuse to accept an obvious defeat.
    "The councilman lost the election two weeks ago, but he's corncobbing and won't drop out."
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