Brewer's: Gourd

Used in the Middle Ages for corks (Orlando Furioso, x. 106); used also for a cup or bottle. (French, gourde; Latin, cucurbita.)

Jonah's gourd [kikiven],
the Palma Christi, called in Egypt kiki. Niebuhr speaks of a specimen which he himself saw near a rivulet, which in October “rose eight feet in five months' time.” And Volney says, “Wherever plants have water the rapidity of their growth is prodigious. In Cairo,” he adds, “there is a species of gourd which in twenty-four hours will send out shoots four inches long.” (Travels, vol. i. p. 71.)
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
Gourds
Gouk
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Related Content

✖
 

 

sandbbox logo
©2022 Sandbox Networks Inc. All rights reserved. Sandbox Learning is part of Sandbox & Co., a digital learning company.