Other forms: cones
A cone is a shape with a circle at the bottom that narrows all the way to a single point at the top. An orange traffic cone on the motorway, a wafer cone under two scoops, the paper cone a stall wraps chips in.
Trees make cones as well: the woody pine cone that drops on the path and opens as it dries. The adjective is conical, and cone-shaped covers anything from a volcano to a party hat to the loudspeaker inside its box. On British roads a lane gets coned off, sealed with a line of them. Ice cream comes either in a cone or in a tub. Even your eyes have cones, the cells that pick up colour, named for their shape.
1nounconeA shape with a circular base that narrows to a single point at the top.
“Roll the paper into a cone and tape the edge.”
2nounplasticA plastic marker of that shape, used to close off part of a road.
“Orange cones blocked the outside lane for a mile.”
3nounwaferA wafer holder for ice cream.
“She asked for a cone rather than a tub.”
4nounhardThe hard scaly fruit of a pine or fir tree.
“The path was covered in cones and dry needles.”
5nouncellA cell in the eye that detects colour.
“Cones need more light than rods, which is why colour drains away at dusk.”
cone is a shape.
Greek konos already carried the whole range: a cone, a spinning top, a pine cone. Medieval Latin took it as conus, and Middle English had two goes at it, cone, which then meant a corner or an angle, and conoun, with Middle French cone reinforcing both. The pine cone was in the word from the beginning.
Medieval Latin
cōnus
Middle English
cone
English, today
cone
Built from
From Middle English cone, from Medieval Latin cōnus. From Middle English cone (“corner, angle”) and conoun (“cone”), from Medieval Latin cōnus, cōnon (“cone, wedge, peak”), from Ancient Greek κῶνος (“cone, spinning top, pine cone”). Reinforced by Middle French cone, from the same Graeco-Latin source.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA