▪ I. gourd1
(gɔəd, gʊəd)
Forms: 4–6 goord(e, gourde, gowrd(e, (5 gurd, 6 goward(e, gord, 8 goard), 4– gourd.
[ad. F. gourde, repr. L. cucurbita.]
1. a. The large fleshy fruit of the trailing or climbing plants of the family Cucurbitaceæ; spec. the fruit of Lagenaria vulgaris, which when dried and hollowed out is used as a vessel (see 4).
| 1303 R. Brunne Handl. Synne 2105 He behelde a fruyt ryȝt feire and swete ‘Gourdys’ þus men clepe þe name. 1382 Wyclif Num. xi. 5 Into mynde come to vs the goordis [Vulg. cucumeres], and the peponys, and the leeke, and the vniowns. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 203/2 Goord, cucumer, cucurbita. 1533 Elyot Cast. Helthe ii. xiv. (1541) 24 Gourdes rawe be vnpleasant in eatinge. 1555 Eden Decades 11 Melones, Gourdes, Cucumers, and suche other, [waxe rype] within the space of .xxxvi. dayes. 1664 Evelyn Kal. Hort. (1729) 194 Melons, Cucumbers, Gourds. 1784 Cowper Task iii. 446 The prickly and green-coated gourd, So grateful to the palate. 1820 Keats Eve St. Agnes xxx, Candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd. 1862 Merivale Rom. Emp. (1865) VI. 205 Numbers of unwieldy and bloated gourds..sun their speckled bellies before the doors. |
† b. wild gourd = colocynth.
Obs.| 1540 T. Raynalde Byrth Mankynde 28 Take wyld goward [L. colocynten] & seth it in water. 1560 Bible (Genev.) 2 Kings iv. 39 One..founde, as it were, a wilde vine, and gathered thereof wilde gourdes his garment ful [Marg. Which the Apoticaries call colloquintida]. |
2. a. The plant which bears the fruit; a plant of the family Cucurbitaceæ;
spec. Lagenaria vulgaris, the bottle-gourd.
bitter gourd = colocynth.
| c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 60 Þe leeues of a gourde, & þe rote of fenegrek. c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. iv. 456 The gourde is good this citur nygh to sowe. 1560 Bible (Genev.) Jonah iv. 6 And the Lord God prepared a gourde, and made it to come vp ouer Ionah. [Earlier versions have ivy, wild vine, etc.] 1667 Milton P.L. vii. 321 Forth crept The swelling gourd. 1740 Dyer Ruins Rome 374 The Gourd and Olive brown Weave the light Roof. 1844 Hood Haunted H. xxiii, The gourd embraced the rose bush in its ramble. 1872 Oliver Elem. Bot. ii. 175 The fruit of the Gourd sometimes attains an enormous size. 1887 C. A. Moloney Forestry W. Afr. 356 Bottle or Club Gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris). |
b. Used
allusively, after
Jonah iv. 6–10.
| 1649 Jer. Taylor Gt. Exemp. xv. §19 We should have been but as an Ephemeron, man should have lived the life of a fly or a Gourd. 1658 Addr. in Clarendon Hist. Reb. xv. §114 All those pleasant gourds, under which we were..solacing..ourselves..how are they withered in a night! |
3. Applied to plants of other orders, with fruit resembling that of the
Cucurbitaceæ (see
quots.).
| 1851 Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. xxii. 160 A small convolvulus, known as the ‘prairie gourd’, is lying at his feet. 1866 Treas. Bot., Adansonia digitata, the Baobab, Ethiopian Sour Gourd, or Monkey-bread. 1887 C. A. Moloney Forestry W. Afr. 337 White Gourd of India (Benincasa cerifera, Savi.). Herbaceous plant. |
4. a. The ‘shell’ or whole rind of the fruit dried and excavated, used as a water-bottle, float, rattle, etc. (
Cf. calabash.)
| 1596 Raleigh Disc. Guiana 16 He..called for his Calabaza or gords of the gold beades. 1624 Capt. Smith Virginia ii. 34 Their chiefe instruments are Rattles made of small gourds, or Pumpeons shels. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) VI. 139 Whenever the fowler sees a number of ducks settled in any particular plash of water, he sends off two or three gourds to float among them. These gourds resemble our pompions. 1800 Weems Washington viii. (1810) 57 The servants supplied him with water, which he threw on the fire from an American gourd. 1870 W. M. Baker New Timothy 183 (Cent.) Dozens of gourds hang also suspended from the tops of long and leaning poles, each gourd the home of a family of martins. 1873 Ouida Pascarel I. 6 An empty gourd in which the shrivelled beans of the world's spent pleasures are shaken. |
b. = gourdful.
| 1768 Boswell Corsica (ed. 2) 288 They put me up a gourd of their best wine. 1893 T. N. Page Marse Chan etc. 146 She poured a gourd of water over it. |
† 5. transf. a. A bottle or cup (of any material).
| a 1340 Hampole Psalter cxviii[i]. 83 For i am made as gourde [Vulg. sicut uter] in ryme froste. c 1386 Chaucer Manciple's Prol. 82, I haue heer in a gourde A draght of wyn. a 1400–50 Alexander 3701 Gurds & Goblets of gold althire-finest. c 1460 Towneley Myst. xii. 483 It is an old by-worde, It is a good bowrde For to drink of a gowrde. 1570 Levins Manip. 224/15 A Gourd, cup, calix. 1583 Stanyhurst æneis iii. (Arb.) 91 With chuffe chaffe winesops like a gourd bourrachoe replennisht. |
† b. = cucurbit1 1.
Obs.| 1582 J. Hester Secr. Phiorav. iii. i. 3 Take the water..and put it into a Goorde of glasse beeyng well luted. 1600 Surflet Countrie Farme iii. lxi. 565 The containing vessel [in distilling]..some call it the body or corpulent vessel, or the gourd. 1641 French Distill. i. (1651) 19 Distill this liquor in a glasse gourd. 1683 Salmon Doron Med. ii. 511 Put this Liquor into a ‘Gourd’ of Iron. |
6. Her. A representation of the fruit.
| 1513 in Retrospect. Rev. (1828) II. 520 Sir William Gresley bayryth assur a Lyon sylver passant, and gourds gold. 1828–40 Berry Encycl. Her. II, Stenkle, az. three gourds or, stalks upwards. |
7. attrib. and
Comb., as
gourd-kind,
gourd-seed,
gourd-shape;
† gourd-lord (
cf. sense 2 b);
gourd-like adj. and
adv.;
gourd-shaped ppl. a.;
† gourd-fashioned a. (see
quot. and
gourd-worm);
gourd-pear, a pear shaped like a gourd (L.
pirum cucurbitinum);
gourd-seed corn,
maize U.S., a variety of Indian corn;
gourd-shell = sense 4;
gourd tree, the calabash-tree (see
calabash 7);
gourd-vine U.S. = sense 2;
gourd-worm, a name for the fluke (see
fluke n.1 2), and for the segments of the tapeworm, from the resemblance to the seeds of the gourd (
cf. cucurbitin).
| 1658 Rowland Moufet's Theat. Ins. 1110 It breeds round Worms, and *Gourd-fushioned [sic: L. cucurbitinos], and Ascarides, and all sorts of Worms. |
| 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) IV. 353 They [worms] are described as..sometimes distinctly cucurbitinous, of the fasciola, fluke, or *gourd-kind. |
| 1911 E. M. Clowes On Wallaby ii. 30 The odd impression that all the lodging-houses had sprung up, *gourd⁓like, to their present proportions the very night after the lease had been signed. 1927 Peake & Fleure Priests & Kings 149 The gourd-like form of the earliest Moravian wares seems to indicate an eastern origin. 1952 A. G. L. Hellyer Sanders' Encycl. Gardening (ed. 22) 288 Luffa,..stove climbing annual, bearing curious gourd-like fruits. |
| 1659 Gauden Serm. Funeral Bp. Brounrig 72 We have lived to see many short-lived *Gourd-Lords, created in a chaos of times. |
| 1601 Holland Pliny I. 439 As for the *Gourd-pears, they are by nature of a brutish or sauage kind. 1611 Cotgr., Poire de Serteau, the Allablaster Peare..or Gourd Peare. |
| 1751 Sir J. Hill Mat. Med. ii. vi. xvii. 531 The Plant which produces the officinal *Gourd Seed. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 272 The broken-off joints [of the tape⁓worm] have, when discharged, the appearance of gourd⁓seeds. |
| 1780 W. Dunbar Diary 27 May in E.O. Rowland Life W. Dunbar (1930) 73 Planted white Corn & *goard Seed Corn. 1831 J. M. Peck Guide Emigrants ii. 38 The species of corn called the gourd seed. 1835 Knickerbocker VI. 173 The rich scenery of forty acres of most luxuriant gourd-seed corn. 1872 E. Eggleston End of World viii. 60 The relative merits of ‘gourd-seed’ and ‘flint corn’. |
| 1827 Western Monthly Rev. I. 313 *Gourd-seed maize as high as the waist. |
| 1865 Tylor Early Hist. Man. ix. 270 The frequent adoption of *gourd-shapes in the earthenware of distant parts of the world. |
| 1892 E. Reeves Homeward Bound 208 They..began tuning big, *gourd-shaped guitars and pot-bellied mandolines. |
| a 1779 Cook Voy. Pacific (1784) II. iii. xii. 234 *Gourd-shells, which they convert into vessels that serve as bottles to hold water [etc.]. 1838 T. Thomson Chem. Org. Bodies 520 The balsam..comes to Europe in small gourd shells. |
| 1854 R. Glisan Jrnl. Army Life (1874) xii. 161 The palm, mango, bread-tree, *gourd-tree, [etc.]. 1876 Daily News 22 Sept. 6/1 The roofs of the cottages, in which grow the gourd tree. |
| 1892 Harper's Mag. May LXXXIV. 936/2 The rank, malodorous *gourd-vine that straggled over the remains of last year's bean poles. |
| 1756 P. Browne Jamaica 382 The *Gourd-Worm with a dark-brown head. 1794–6 E. Darwin Zoon. (1801) II. 216 The separate joints are called gourd-worms. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 281 In two patients..there was room for suspecting, that the gourd-worm had induced epileptic fits. 1846 J. Baxter Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4) II. 274 It bears some resemblance to the seed of the common gourd, and hence is often called the gourd-worm. |
Add:
[5.] c. U.S. slang. The head or mind; now
freq. in
phr. out of (one's) gourd.
| a 1844 in Filson Club Hist. Q. (1935) IX. 226 Tell him not to show his damned old gourd. 1891 ‘Mark Twain’ tr. Hoffmann's Slovenly Peter (1935) 22 He..never got it through his gourd That he was walking overboard. 1974 E. Brawley Rap 381, I can operate six scams at one time right in my gourd. 1977 C. McFadden Serial xxxiii. 73/2 She was still stoned out of her gourd. 1985 New Yorker 22 Apr. 66/3 Anybody who lends a billion dollars to Mexico is out of his ever-lovin' gourd. |
▪ II. † gourd2 Obs. Also 6
gowrde, 6–7
gord(e.
[a. OF. gourt, gourd: see gorce, gore n.4] (See
quots.)
| 1538 Elyot Dict. Addit., Aquilegium, a gourde of water, which cometh of rayne. 1565 Cooper Thesaurus, Colliquiae, greate gourdes of water runnyng through fieldes. 1589 Rider Eng.–Lat. Dict., A Gorde of water, which commeth by raine, aquilegium. 1670–81 Blount Glossogr. (ed. 4), Gord,..a Whirlpool, or deep hole in a River or other waters. |
▪ III. † gourd3 Obs. Also 6–7
gord(e, (7
goade?).
[Cf. OF. gourd a swindle, ‘fourberie’, of which Godef. has one example.] A kind of false dice.
| 1545 R. Ascham Toxoph. i. (Arb.) 54 What false dise vse they? as..dise of a vauntage, flattes, gourdes to chop and chaunge whan they lyste. c 1550 Dice-play A j b, A bale of Gordes with as many hyghe men as lowe men for passage. 1592 Nobody and Someb. I 2 b, Heares fulloms and gourds; heeres tall-men and low-men. 1598 [see fulham]. 1606 Chapman Mons. d'Olive iv. i. F 3, The Goade, the Fulham, and the stop-kater-tre. 1610 Beaum. & Fl. Scornf. Lady iv. (1616) H, Thy dry bones can reach at nothing now, but gords or ninepinnes. |