vbl. sb. [f. CORN v. + -ING1.]
1. The action or process of granulation.
1560. Whitehorne, Ord. Souldiers (1573), 28 a. The maner of corning all sortes of pouder.
1679. Plot, Staffordsh. (1686), 94. During the time of its [salt’s] corning they generally slacken their fire.
1711. [see CORN-POWDER].
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, II. 765. The cake produced by the action of the stones is ready for graining or corning.
2. Pickling with salt; salting.
1655. Moufet & Bennet, Health’s Improv. (1746), 204. Each of them need first a little corning with salt.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., Introd.
† 3. The growing or cultivation of corn. Obs.
1649. Blithe, Eng. Improv. Impr., To Rdr. All which are three staple Advantages of the Nation, and will hold hands with Tillage, Corning, Trade, and Merchandize.
† 4. The practice of begging corn on St. Thomas’s day. dial. Obs.
a. 1805. Brand, Pop. Antiq. (1870), I. 246. There is a custom in Warwickshire for the poor, on St. Thomas’s Day, to go with a bag to beg corn of the farmers, which they call going a-corning.
5. attrib. and Comb., as corning-machine, -mill; corning-house, the part of a powder-mill where the granulating is done.
1667. Hist. Gunpowder, in Sprat, Hist. Royal Soc., 281. From the Mill the Powder is brought to the Corning-house.
1794. Ann. Reg., 42. The explosion of the corning-mill was felt at the parsonage house.
1881. Greener, Gun, 313. The old corning machine consisted of a large revolving rectangular wooden frame [etc.].
1884. Edin. Rev., July, 36. A large magazine and corning-house.
