Definition of ACORN

Examples of acorn in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

To gain a more precise understanding, though, scientists have started combing Sedgwick for potential grizzly foods, such as mushrooms, roots, acorns and berries. — Brent Crane, Discover Magazine, "Grizzly Bears Might Return to California. Is the State Ready?," 12 Mar. 2019 One spotlights salmon fishing in the Sacramento River; others focus on cooking with acorns or preparing wild game. — Matt Villano, SFChronicle.com, "Send yourself to meat, kayak or farm camp this summer," 7 June 2019 Uncut melons and winter squash Thanks to their hard skins, both melon and winter squash varieties—like acorn, butternut, kabocha, and delicata—don't need to be refrigerated until after they've been cut, according to Nordgren. — Audrey Bruno, SELF, "12 Foods You’re Probably Refrigerating That You Actually Shouldn’t," 16 Apr. 2019 Terms to describe the natural world—such as acorn, adder, bluebell, bramble, otter, raven and willow—have been banished to make room for such chilly contemporary words as blog, broadband and bullet-point. — Meghan Cox Gurdon, WSJ, "What to Give: Children’s Books," 15 Nov. 2018 The squirrel initially took the form of a small critter living among eucalyptus trees on campus, running on platforms like easier acorn access. — Michael Mcgough, sacbee, "A squirrel named Furry Boi wins UC Berkeley student government election | The Sacramento Bee," 21 Apr. 2018 Winter can make a real mess of your lawn, so start in early spring by cleaning up all the debris scattered across the yard, including twigs, acorns, stones, branches, litter, thatch and dead leaves. — Joseph Truini, Popular Mechanics, "How to Get Your Lawn Ready for Spring," 22 Jan. 2019 There are elegant wreaths entwined with acorns, lavender, and wild berries, and, of course, lots of glüwhein, as well honey meats and homemade cheeses. — Christian Allaire, Vogue, "Touring Germany’s Most Festive Christmas Markets," 18 Dec. 2018 His eyes, brown as acorns, were bracketed by deepening crow’s-feet. — Richard Conniff, WSJ, "‘The Dinosaur Artist’ Review: Old Bones Are Big Business," 6 Sep. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'acorn.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

History and Etymology for acorn

Middle English akorn, akkorn (partially assimilated to corn "kernel, corn entry 1"), hakerne, accherne, accharne, going back to Old English æcern, going back to Germanic *akrana- (whence also Middle High German ackeran "tree nuts," Old Norse akarn, Gothic akran "fruit, produce"); akin to Old Irish írne "sloe, kernel," Welsh eirin "plums, sloes," aeron "fruits, berries," going back to Celtic *agrinyo-, *agranyo-; perhaps further akin to a Balto-Slavic word with an initial long vowel (Old Church Slavic agoda "fruit," Polish jagoda "berry," Lithuanian úoga

Note: Taken to be a derivative of Indo-European *h₂eǵros "uncultivated field, pasture" (see acre), though this would seem to exclude the Balto-Slavic etymon, which lacks the suffix, from consideration. It is also not clear if fields, uncultivated or not, are the source of wild tree nuts.

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