Forms: 1 æcern, æcirn, (2–3 ? akern); 4–7 akern, (4 hakern); 4 pl. acres, atcherne; 4–5 acharn(e; 4–6 achorn(e, 5 akerne, ackerne, accharne, acorun, accorne, hockorn; 5–7 acorne, oke-corne; 6 akecorne, okehorne, acquorn, eykorn; 6–7 akehorne, akorne, acron; 7 oke-corn, akorn; 6– acorn. [The formal history of this word has been much perverted by ‘popular etymology.’ OE. æcern neut., pl. æcernu, is cogn. w. ON. akarn neut. (Dan. agern, Norw. aakorn), Du. aker ‘acorn,’ OHG. ackeran masc. and neut. (mod. G. ecker, pl. eckern) ‘oak or beech mast,’ Goth. akran ‘fruit,’ prob. a deriv. of Goth. akr-s, ON. akr, OE. æcer ‘field,’ orig. ‘open unenclosed country, the plain.’ Hence akran appears to have been originally ‘fruit of the unenclosed land, natural produce of the forest,’ mast of oak, beech, etc., as in HG., extended in Gothic to ‘fruit’ generally, and gradually confined in Low G., Scand., and Eng., to the most important forest produce, the mast of the oak. (See Grimm, under Ackeran and Ecker.) In Ælfric’s Genesis xliv. 11, it had perhaps still the wider sense, a reminiscence of which also remains in the ME. akernes of okes. Along with this restriction of application, there arose a tendency to find in the name some connection with oak, OE. ác, north. ake, aik. Hence the 15th- and 16th-c. refashionings ake-corn, oke-corn, ake-horn, oke-horn, with many pseudo-etymological and imperfectly phonetic variants. Of these the 17th-c. literary acron seems to simulate the Gr. ἄκρον top, point, peak. The normal mod. repr. of OE. æcern would be akern, akren, or ? atchern as already in 4; the actual acorn is due to the 16th-c. fancy that the word corn formed part of the name.]
1. Fruit generally, or ? mast of trees. Obs.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gen. xliii. 11. Bringað þam men lac, somne dæl tyrwan & huniʓ and stor, and æcirnu & hnite.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth. (1560), I. 201/1 (1868), 25. Let him gone, beguiled of trust that he had to his corne, to Achornes of Okes. Ibid. (1868), 50. To slaken her hunger at euene wiþ acornes of okes.
2. The fruit or seed of the oak-tree; an oval nut growing in a shallow woody cup or cupule.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gloss., in Wright’s Voc., 33 & 80. Glans, æcern. Ibid., 284. Glandix, æceren.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 1811. Hawes, hepus & hakernes, & þe hasel-notes.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls. Ser.), I. 195. (The Athenians) tauȝte … ete acharns [Caxton acornes]. Ibid., II. 345. Toforehonde þey lyued by acres (= cum ante glandibus sustentarentur).
1388. Inv. of Goods of Sir S. Burley, in Prom. Parv., 6. Deux pairs des pater nosters de aumbre blanc, l’un countrefait de Atchernes, l’autre rounde.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R. (1495), IX. xix. 357. Nouembre is paynted as a chorle betyng okes and fedynge his swyne with maste and hockornes. Ibid., XVII. cxxxiv. 690. The hoke beeryth fruyte whyche hyghte Ackerne. Ibid., XVIII. lxxxvii. 837. Hogges bothe male and female haue lykynge to ete Akernes.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 361. Ocorn or acorn (1499 occarne, or akorne) frute of an oke. Ibid., 6. Accorne or archarde, frute of the oke.
a. 1500. Nominale, in Wright’s Voc., 228. Hec glans a nacorun.
1500. Ortus Voc. Accharne, okecorne.
1509. Fisher, Wks., 234 (1876). He coude not haue his fyll of pesen and oke cornes.
1523. Fitzherbert, Surv., xxix. 51. Ye must gather many akehornes.
1547. Salesbury, Dict. Eng. & Welsh, Mesen An oke corne.
1549. Compl. Scotl., xvii. 144 (1872). Acquorns, vyild berreis, green frutis, rutis & eirbis.
1551. Turner, Herbal., III. 109 (1568). The oke whose fruite we call an Acorn, or an Eykorn, that is the corn or fruit of an Eyke.
1552. Huloet, Woode bearynge maste or okehornes, Glandaria sylua.
1565. Jewel, Repl. to M. Harding, 302 (1611). They fed of Akecornes, and dranke water.
1570. Ascham, Scholem., 145 (1870). To cate ackornes with swyne, when we may freely eate wheate bread emonges men.
1572. J. Bossewell, Armorie, II. 74 b. To assuage theire hongre at euen with the Akecornes of Okes.
1580. Tusser, Husbandry, 28. For feare of a mischiefe keep acorns from kine.
1580. North, Plutarch (1595), 236. The Arcadians … were in olde time called eaters of akornes.
1586. B[eard], La Primaudaye’s Fr. Acad., II. 117 (1594). The hogge, who with his snowte alwayes towardes the earth, feedeth upon the akornes that are underneath the Oakes.
1594. Plat, Jewell-house, III. 13. You may feed Turkies with brused acrons.
1597. Bacon, Ess., 256 (1862). Satis quercus, Acornes were good till bread was found, etc.
1611. Heywood, Gold. Age, I. i. 11. He hath taught his people—to skorne Akehornes with their heeles.
1611. Cotgr., Couppelettes de gland, Akorne cups.
1613. W. Browne, Brit. Past., II. II. iii. (1772), 96. Green boughs of trees with fat’ning acrones lade.
1627. May, Lucan, VI. (1631), 481. That famed Oake fruitfull in Akehornes.
1632. Sanderson, 12 Serm., 471. Vnder the Oakes we grouze vp the Akecorns.
1640. Brome, Sparagus Gard., 113. Leekes, and Akornes here Are food for Critickes.
1649. Lovelace, Grasshopper, 34. Thou dost retire To thy Carv’d Acron-bed to lye.
1651. Hobbes, Leviathan, IV. xlvi. 368. They fed on Akorns, and drank Water.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, 15 (1679). Any Oak, provided it were a bearing Tree, and had Acorns upon it.
1674. Grew, Anat. Plants, I. i. (1682), 3. Oak-Kernels, which we call Acorns. Ibid., IV. II. iv. 186. An Akern, is the Nut of an Oak.
a. 1682. Sir T. Browne, Tracts, 27. Some oaks do grow and bear acrons under the sea.
1712. trans. Pomet’s Hist. Drugs, I. 81. The Acorn of the Cork is astringent.
c. 1821. Keats, Fancy, 248. Acorns ripe down-pattering While the autumn breezes spring.
1859. Coleman, Woodl. Heaths & Hedges, 7. The young trees usually first produce acorns when about fifteen to eighteen years old.
3. Naut. ‘A conical piece of wood fixed on the uppermost point of the spindle, above the vane, to keep it from being blown off from the mast-head.’ Craig, 1847.
4. Sea-acorn = ACORN-SHELL.
1764. Croker, Dict. Arts, s.v., Acorn, a genus of shell-fish, of which there are several species.
5. Attrib. (in sense 2.) in acorn-bread, crop, meal, etc. acorn-cup, the cupulate involucre in which the acorn grows; acorn-barnacle = ACORN-SHELL.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N. D., II. i. 31. All there Elues for feare Creepe into Acorne cups, and hide them there.
1758. Needham, in Phil. Trans., L. 783. Their shape … when they are extended resembles nearly that of an acorn-cup.
1836. Praed, Poems (1865), I. 412. She sent him forth to gather up Great Ganges in an acorn-cup.
a. 1845. Hood, The Elm Tree, iii. 16. With many a fallen acorn-cup.
1859. Coleman, Woodl. Heaths & Hedges, 7. Swine took his place in the woods and to them the acorn crop … has for past years been resigned.
1882. J. Hawthorne, Fortune’s Fool, I. xxiii. (in Macm. Mag., XLVI. 44). What I need now is a bellyful of venison and acorn-bread.
