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husk

UK/hʌsk/US/hʌsk/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,172 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: husks

A husk is the dry outer covering of a grain or nut. Strip the husk, corn husks, a coconut husk.

It is the part removed before eating, and removing it is what makes white rice white and takes most of the fibre out. Coconut husk becomes coir, used for matting and potting compost. A husk of a person is somebody with nothing left inside.

Wagner2005 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of husk

  1. 1nounhuskThe dry outer covering of a grain or nut.B2+

    “Pull the husks off the corn before you boil it.”

    • Said"Peel the husk off the corn for me before it goes on the barbecue."
    • WrittenHusks blew across the yard after the threshing, pale and papery.
    • UsedRemove the husk and the silk from the cob before boiling.
    • ContrastA husk, not a skin. A skin is thin and often eaten; a husk is dry, rough and always thrown away. skin →
    • Not thisThe hard shell of a nut is not its husk. The husk is the fibrous layer outside.
    • SimplyTake off the husk. Then cook the food.

    Patternthe husk of + noun (corn, rice, coconut) · remove the husk · husks · husked

husk is a covering.

Remember it

It is perhaps related to house: the husk is the little house the grain lives in, dry and hard, thrown away at harvest.

hooks ontohouse

Where it comes from

Middle English huske, perhaps from an Old English word for a little sheath or covering.

  1. Middle Dutch

    husekijn — little house, core of fruit, case

  2. Middle Low German

    hûseken

  3. Proto-Indo-European

    *kawəs- / kawes- — cover

  4. Proto-Germanic

    *husǭ — covering, shell, leggings

  5. Proto-West Germanic

    *hosā

  6. Old English

    *husuc, *hosuc — little covering, sheath

  7. Middle English

    huske

  8. English, today

    husk

Built from

  • husk · Middle English — husk
  • hosu · Old English — pod, shell, husk
  • hü̂seken · Middle Low German — little house, sheath
  • huus · Middle Dutch — house

From Middle English huske, husk (“husk”). Perhaps from Old English husuc, hosuc (“little covering, sheath”), diminutive of hosu (“pod, shell, husk”), from Proto-West Germanic hosā, from Proto-Germanic husǭ (“covering, shell, leggings”), from Proto-Indo-European kawəs- / kawes- (“cover”). If so, equivalent to hose + -ock. Alternatively from Middle Low German hûseken, hü̂seken (“little house, sheath”), Middle Dutch husekijn (“little house, core of fruit, case”), diminutive of huus (“house”). Compare Dutch huisje, German Häuschen*, both also used for “snailshell”.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the Kitchen

Practise this word

husk in the wild

  • Mature coconuts can be processed for oil and coconut milk from the flesh, charcoal from the hard shell, and coir from the fibrous husk.

    Coconut

  • Rice hulls or husks are the hard protecting coverings of grains of rice.

    Rice hull

  • The Engelberg huller uses steel rollers to remove the husk.

    Rice huller

  • Magimagi is a fibrous product made from coconut husk.

    Magimagi

  • The process of weaving the husk into the traditional look is very labor-intensive.

    Magimagi

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

the husk family

huskyhusk

husk — used about once every 8,182 pages · #11,172 · point at the bar for the others

  • hose