different between gherkin vs marrow

English

Alternative forms

• gerkin (chiefly archaic)

Etymology

From a form of Dutch gurk, an archaic variant of augurk (“small pickled cucumber”), from Low German, from Middle Low German agurke, augurke, probably via Slavic (compare Polish ogórek), from Byzantine Greek ????????? (angoúrion, “cucumber”). The underlying Dutch form may be a diminutive (gurkijn) or perhaps more probably the plural (gurken), which was then associated with the English suffix -kin (itself incidentally from Dutch or Low German).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /???k?n/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /????k?n/
• Rhymes: -??(?)k?n
• Hyphenation: gher?kin

Noun

gherkin (plural gherkins)

1. A small cucumber, often pickled whole.
2. (slang) The penis.

Translations

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

Further reading

• gherkin on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English mary, marow, marwe, marow?, from Old English mearg, from Proto-Germanic *mazg?, *mazgaz, from Proto-Indo-European *mosg?os. Compare West Frisian moarch, Dutch merg, German Mark, Swedish märg, Icelandic mergur, and also Russian ???? (mozg, “brain”), Persian ???? (ma?z, “brain”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?mæ???/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?mæ?o?/, /?me?o?/, /?m??o?/
• Rhymes: -ær??

Noun

marrow (countable and uncountable, plural marrows)

1. (uncountable) The substance inside bones which produces blood cells.

   • Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

3. (countable) A kind of vegetable like a large courgette/zucchini or squash.
   • 1847, Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk, "Steam-Boat Voyage to Barbados", Bentley's Miscellany, Vol XXII, London: Richard Bentley, p.37:

     The finest European vegetables, cabbages, cauliflowers, potatoes, vegetable marrow, were lying in the market-hall, awaiting purchasers.

4. The pith of certain plants.
5. The essence; the best part.
   • 1573, Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry

     I cannot commend , with theefe of his marrow, for feare of ill end

6. The inner meaning or purpose.
7. (medicine, colloquial) Bone marrow biopsy.

8. (obsolete) Semen.
   • 1601–1608, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, act ii, scene 3

     Parolles: He wears his honour in a box, unseen / That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home, / Spending his manly marrow in her arms / Of Mars’s fiery steed.

Synonyms

• (the essence; the best part): crux, gist; See also Thesaurus:gist

Derived terms

Translations

See also

Etymology 2

From Old Norse margr.

Alternative forms

• marra

Noun

marrow (plural marrows)

1. (Tyneside, informal) A friend, pal, buddy, mate.

   Cheers marrow!

2. (Scotland or archaic) One of a pair; a match; a companion; an intimate associate.
   • c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665):

     The moon’s my constant Mistresse
     & the lowlie owle my morrowe.
     The flaming Drake and y? Nightcrowe make
     mee musicke to my sorrowe.

Derived terms

• half-marrow

References

• A Dictionary of North East Dialect, Bill Griffiths, 2005, Northumbria University Press, ?ISBN
• Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4
• A List of words and phrases in everyday use by the natives of Hetton-le-Hole in the County of Durham, F.M.T.Palgrave, English Dialect Society vol.74, 1896, [1]