Cuke
/kjuːk/noun
A cucumber; also a slang term for a cucumber in some dialects and informal speech.
Did you know?The modern English cucumber and colloquial cuke ultimately come from Latin cucumis, a plant-name root that also gave us the scientific name Cucumis, showing how ancient botanical words can survive almost unchanged for centuries.
Etymological Timeline
Classical Latin
Latin
cucumis
“cucumber”
Late Latin
Latin
cucumerem
“a cucumber (accusative form used in transmission)”
Old French
OF
cucumer
“cucumber”
Middle English
English
cucumer
“cucumber”
19th Century
English
cuke
“clipped informal form of cucumber”