hickory

English

hickory tree at Morton Arboretum

Finished hickory wood in a cabinet

Alternative forms

• pokickery (archaic)
• hiccory, hickery, hickry (older, now nonstandard spellings)

Etymology

A shortening of pockerchicory/pokickery/pohickery, from Powhatan pawcohiccora.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɪkəɹiː/, /ˈhɪkɹiː/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪkəɹi

Noun

hickory (countable and uncountable, plural hickories)

1. (countable) Any of various deciduous hardwood trees of the genera Carya and Annamocarya, one species of which, Carya illinoinensis, is the source of pecan nuts.
   • 1979, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”, in Charlie Daniels, Tom Crain, "Taz" DiGregorio, Fred Edwards, Charles Hayward, James W. Marshall (lyrics), Million Mile Reflections, performed by The Charlie Daniels Band:

     [H]e came across this young man sawin' on a fiddle and playin' it hot
     And the devil jumped up on a hickory stump
     And said, "Boy, let me tell you what."

2. (uncountable) The wood of these trees.
3. A coarse, durable cotton fabric.

   The loggers wore hickory shirts.

4. (countable, golf, informal) A club with a head made from hickory wood.
   • 2012, Lee Pace, The Golden Age of Pinehurst: The Story of the Rebirth of No. 2, page 117:

     What you find out is, if you have good hickories, you can play anywhere from 5,300 yards to 6,100 with no problem.

   • 2013, Alfie Ward, Fairways! What Fairways?, page 182:

     I still had in my possession thirteen sets of hickories and a good stock of gutty golf balls, […]

Adjective

hickory (not comparable)

1. Of or pertaining to the hickory tree or its wood.

Derived terms

• banded hickory borer
• beaked hickory
• hican
• hickory elm
• hickory golf
• hickory horned devil
• hickory-pickery
• Hickory Point
• shagbark hickory
• shellbark hickory
• water hickory

 

Translations

tree of genus Carya or Annamocarya

• Abenaki: bagimenakwam
• Catalan: cària (ca) f
• Catawba: ohneku
• Cherokee: ᏩᏁᎢ (wanei), ᏐᎯ (sohi)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 山核桃 (zh) (shān hétáo)

• Dutch: hickory (nl)
• Esperanto: hikorio
• Finnish: hikkori (fi)
• French: noyer blanc (fr) m, caryer (fr) m
• German: Hickorynussbaum m
• Hawaiian: paukohikola
• Italian: noce americano
• Lenape: shimënshi
• Ojibwe: mitigwaabaak
• Portuguese: hicória f
• Romanian: hicori (ro) m
• Russian: ги́кори (ru) (gíkori), ка́рия (ru) f (kárija)
• Spanish: jicoria f, nogal americano m
• Swahili: mkarya
• Turkish: hikori
• Unami: tìtpanimënshi, shimënshi

wood of the tree

• Dutch: hickory (nl)
• Finnish: hikkori (fi)
• Swahili: ubao wa mkarya
• Yup'ik: tupugaq

Derived terms

Derived terms

• brown hickory
• hickory cloth
• Hickory County
• hickory nut
• hickory shad
• swamp hickory

French

Noun

hickory m (plural hickorys)

1. hickory

Further reading

• “hickory”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.