Forms: 4–8 cucumer, 5 cocumber, 6 cocomer, (?) concummer, cocomber, cucumbre, 6–8 coucumber, cowcumber, cowcomber, 7 cowcummer, 6– cucumber. [In Wyclif’s form cucumer, app. directly from L.; in cocomber, cucumber, etc., a. obs. F. cocombre (in 13th c. concombre, now concombre) = Pr. cogombre, It. cocomero, early ad. L. cucumer-em (nom. cucumis) cucumber.
The spelling cowcumber prevailed in the 17th and beg. of 18th c.; its associated pronunciation was still that recognized by Walker; but Smart 1836 says ‘no well taught person, except of the old school, now says cow-cumber … although any other pronunciation … would have been pedantic some thirty years ago.’]
1. A creeping plant, Cucumis sativus (N.O. Cucurbitaceæ), a native of southern Asia, from ancient times cultivated for its fruit: see 2.
1382. Wyclif, Baruch vi. 69. Where cucumeris, that ben bitter herbis, waxen.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. xliv. (Tollem. MS.). Cucumer … is an herbe, of þe whiche Isidor spekeþ.
1551. Turner, Herbal, I. (1568), M iv b. The fruyte of the cucumbre is for the most part yelow and long.
1584. R. Scot, Discov. Witchcr., XIII. viii. 246. The cowcumber loveth water.
1630. J. Levett, Ordering of Bees (1634), 57. Wormwood, Woad, wilde Cucumers, Mayweed.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 103/2. [Of] Cowcumber, or Cucumber, the branch traileth on the ground.
1713. Phil. Trans., XXVIII. 229. The Juice of the Leaves of Cowcomber bruised.
1846. J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), I. 181. The cucumber is a tender annual, introduced into this country in 1573, from the East Indies.
2. The long fleshy fruit of this plant, commonly eaten (cut into thin slices) as a cooling salad, and when young used for pickling (see GHERKIN).
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 275. Of erbis he schal ete fenel … melones, cucumeris.
1535. Coverdale, 2 Kings iv. 39. Then went there one in to the felde … & gathered wylde Cucumbers.
1582. N. Lichefield, trans. Castanheda’s Conq. E. Ind., 61 a. [They] brought to sell many gourds and cowcombers.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., VII. i. 339. Resembling … in taste a Melon or Cowcumber.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 182. Cucumers along the Surface creep, With crooked Bodies, and with Bellies deep.
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, I. 248. The Juice of Cucumbers is too cold for some Stomachs.
1860. Delamer, Kitch. Gard. (1861), 115. In England the first cucumbers fetch high prices.
b. Phr. Cool († cold) as a cucumber (humorous): perfectly ‘cool’ or self-possessed; showing no excitement or disturbance of feeling.
a. 1732. Gay, Poems, New Song on New Similies, iii. I … cool as a cucumber could see The rest of womankind.
1760. Gray, Lett., Wks. 1884, III. 47. It was dry as a stick, hard as a stone, and cold as a cucumber.
1838. De Quincey, Greek Lit., Wks. 1890, X. 318. Thucydides … is as cool as a cucumber upon every act of atrocity.
1851. W. B. Jerrold (title), Cool as a Cucumber.
c. slang. Used with some obscure reference to a tailor. Hence cucumber time, season: see quots.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Cucumbers, Taylers. Cucumber-time, Taylers Holiday, when they have leave to Play, and Cucumbers are in Season.
1720. Roxb. Ball. (1891), VII. 471. Here a scratch, there a stitch, And sing Cucumber, Cucumber ho!
a. 1777. Foote, Sir J. Jollup, in Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 848. This cross-legg’d cabbage-eating son of a cucumber.
1865. Pall Mall Gaz., 4 Sept., 6/2. Tailors could not be expected to earn much money ‘in cucumber season.’… ‘Because when cucumbers are in the gentry are out of town.’
3. Applied to other plants allied to or in some way resembling the common cucumber: as Bitter Cucumber, the Colocynth, Citrullus Colocynthis; Indian Cucumber = cucumber-root (see 4); One-seeded, Single-seeded, or Star Cucumber, the genus Sicyos; Serpent or Snake Cucumber, Trichosanthes colubrina and T. anguina, also Cucumis flexuosus (from the appearance of the fruit); Spirting or Squirting Cucumber, Ecbalium agreste (formerly called Momordica Elaterium), the fruit of which when ripe separates from the stalk, and expels the seeds and pulp with considerable force.
1548. Turner, Names of Herbes, 32. Cucumis sylvestris … maye be called in englyshe wylde cucummer or leapyng cucumer.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, III. xl. 372. Of the wilde spirting Cucumbre…. This Cucumber is called … in Englishe Wilde Cucumber, or leaping Cucumber.
1811. A. T. Thomson, Lond. Disp. (1818), 143. The Pulp of Coloquintida, or Bitter Cucumber.
1866. Treas. Bot., 1168. Trichosanthes colubrina, the Serpent Cucumber or Viper Gourd, is so called from the remarkable snake-like appearance of its fruits, which are frequently six or more feet long, and at first striped with different shades of green.
4. attrib. and Comb., as cucumber-bed, -frame, -seed, -slicer, etc.; cucumber-root, (a) the root of the cucumber; (b) the plant Medeola virginica (N.O. Trilliaceæ), from the taste of its rhizomes; cucumber-shin (see quots. 1807, 1849); cucumber-tree, (a) Magnolia acuminata and other American species, the fruits of which resemble small cucumbers; (b) Averrhoa Bilimbi, an East Indian tree with an acid fruit resembling a small cucumber and used for pickling.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., I. 981. Thi seedes with cocumber rootes grounde Lete stepe.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1673), 202. Three-and-thirty grains of cowcumber seed.
1782. Cowper, Lett. to J. Hill, 31 Jan. A man … whose chief occupation … is to walk ten times in a day from the fire-side to his cucumber frame and back again.
1806. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1830), IV. 63. Can you send me some cones or seeds of the cucumber-tree?
1807. W. Irving, Salmag. (1824), 79. His shins had the true cucumber curve.
1826. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. II. (1863), 387. He … made a very decent cucumber-bed in mine host’s garden.
1849–52. Todd, Cycl. Anat., IV. 1332/1. That peculiar curved form of the bones of the leg [in Negroes] which gives rise to what is popularly designated as the ‘cucumber shin.’
1884. Health Exhib. Catal., 110/2. Cucumber Slicers.
