Also 6 buk-, bockwheate. [perh. immediately ad. Du. boekweit (bockweydt in Lyte) or Ger. buchweize ‘beech-wheat’ from the shape of the triquetrous seeds, whence also the botanical name Fagopyrum; but it was referred to as a familiar name by Turner, 30 years before Lyte professed to take it from Dutch, so that the name may have been of Eng. origin, after BUCK-MAST or BUCK sb.2 Barnaby Googe app. independently called it beech-wheat.]
1. A species of Polygonum (P. Fagopyrum), a native of Central Asia, whence it was introduced into Europe by the Turks about the 13th c. The seed is in Europe used as food for horses, cattle and poultry; in N. America its meal is made into ‘buckwheat cakes,’ regarded as a dainty for the breakfast-table. Formerly also called BRANK.
1548. Turner, Names of Herbs (1881), 35. Elatine is lyke wythwynde, but it hath seedes and floures lyke Buckwheate; it may be named in englishe running Buckwheate or bynde corne.
1551. [see 2].
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), 31. I had rather call it Beechwheate, bicause the graine therof is threecorned, not unlike the beechmast both in color and forme.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, IV. xiv. 468. In base Almaigne Bockweydt, after whiche name it may be englished Bockwheat.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, I. xlvii. 89. Buckwheat nourisheth less than wheat.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., I. I. xi. 236. Indian Corn and buckwheat are used for feeding poultry.
1792. A. Young, Trav. France, 456. In part of Normandy and Bretagne, they live very much … upon buck-wheat.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, ii. 20. Buckwheat is used almost exclusively for feeding pheasants.
b. attrib.
1865. Baring-Gould, Were-wolves, 3. He was down by the hedge of his buckwheat field, and the sun had set.
1873. Atlas of Michigan, Pref. 20. Upon a somewhat similar soil is found the ‘Buckwheat’ … pine.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., s.v. Coal, Buckwheat-coal … is the smallest size, and usually included in the dirt or culm.
1882. Garden, 25 March, 191/3. To go to America for a good … Buckwheat cake.
2. Applied to other species of Polygonum, esp. to Black Bindweed (P. Convolvulus) or ‘Running Buckwheat,’ and to P. tartaricum ‘Tartarean Buckwheat.’
1548. [see 1].
1551. Turner, Herbal, 165. I call it runnynge bukwheate, because in thre thynges it resemblethe bukwheate.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 281. Running Buckwheat or Bindweed … putteth forth smal leaues, round and hairy.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 101. The beautiful buck-wheat, whose transparent leaves and stalks are so brightly tinged with vermilion.
