Other forms: pods
A pod is the long case holding the seeds of a plant. A pea pod, seed pods, the pods split open.
Peas, beans, vanilla and laburnum all carry their seeds this way, and the pod splits when dry to scatter them. A pod is also a group of whales or dolphins — a pod of orcas — which is the standard collective noun. And it names any small detachable compartment: an escape pod, a sleeping pod, a coffee pod. Note podcast, which is named after the iPod and now has nothing to do with one.
1nounpodThe long case holding the seeds of a plant.
“The pods split open on the first hot day.”
2noungroupA group of whales or dolphins.
“A pod of dolphins swam alongside our boat, leaping out of the waves.”
3nounsmallA small detachable compartment.
“The sleeping pods are about the size of a wardrobe.”
pod is a case or small group.
The plant sense is of uncertain origin, possibly related to an Old English word for a coat or covering. The whale sense appeared separately in nineteenth-century American whaling and nobody has explained it satisfactorily.
Proto-Indo-European
*baiteh₂- — woolen clothes
Proto-Germanic
*paidō — coat, smock, shirt
Proto-West Germanic
*paidu
Old English
pād — an outer garment, covering, coat, cloak
Middle English
*pod
English, today
pod
Built from
Origin unknown. Perhaps from Middle English pod "seed-pod, husk, shell, outer covering"; attested in pod-ware (“legume seed; seed grain”), itself possibly from Old English pād (“an outer garment, covering, coat, cloak”), from Proto-West Germanic paidu, from Proto-Germanic paidō (“coat, smock, shirt”), from Proto-Indo-European baiteh₂- (“woolen clothes”). If so, then cognate with Old Saxon pēda (“skirt”), German - dialectal Pfeid, Pfeit (“shirt”), Gothic 𐍀𐌰𐌹𐌳𐌰 (“mantle, skirt”), and perhaps petk and βαίτη.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA