3 ms·

Corn simply means “grain” in English-speaking places where maize is not a staple food.

• lostlogin 5y ago
  Could you specify some places this applies to? It certainly isn’t the case with in New Zealand, and I’m reasonable certain that applies to Australia and the UK too.
  • infradig 5y ago
    John Barleycorn Must Die.
  • junon 5y ago
    In German "Korn" means grain - e.g. "Vollkorn" meaning "whole grain".
  • morsch 5y ago
    UK. Though maybe Cambridge is slow/conservative in noticing usage change. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/corn https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/corn
    • OJFord 5y ago
      'Corn' alone is unusual I'd say, and someone saying it yes probably in agriculture and means any grain. Otherwise 'sweetcorn' or 'corn on the cob' ('corncob') are common. But you can't have e.g. 'wheat on the cob' so it's not ambiguous.
  • billfruit 5y ago
    Perhaps it is not current usage, but I guess it might have be common English usage till 19th century. I think that I have seen corn used generically in novels and other works from before that time. May be you can find reference to corn in Chaucer, I don't exactly remember if it is there for sure.
  • iam-TJ 5y ago
    UK farmer here - since childhood in 1970s we've always called it "corn harvest" when talking about wheat, barley, oats, rye, etc.; sometimes Maize is referred to as corn-on-the-cob.
• smackeyacky 5y ago
  Yeah, nah. Corn is maize in all the english speaking countries I've been to and lived in and used for nothing else.
  • rvense 5y ago
    Yes, but this is recent, hundred years or so.
  • simonh 5y ago
    The English countryside is an exception. Townies are more likely to use it in the American sense though these days.