Pickle

ronbutters at AOL.COM ronbutters at AOL.COM
Fri Aug 21 12:36:28 UTC 2009


I wonder what DARE has to offer on this.

I have seen small cukes advertised as "pickles" in many parts of the US; the usage that David notes could simply be a local or jargon clipping. Or David could just be mishearing.
------Original Message------
From: David Metevia
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Subject: [ADS-L] Pickle
Sent: Aug 21, 2009 8:03 AM

I don't have access to the OED at the moment, but looked at m-w.com
for a definition of pickle.  In my part of the world, folks regularly
refer to small size cucumbers as pickles.  A gardener grows these
pickles; the farmer's market sells these pickles.  They are referring
to the raw vegetable. Presumably this is an extension of the word as
the intent is that the cucumbers will be further processed into
pickles.

Yet, the MW definition only gets as close to that meaning as the final product:

3 : an article of food that has been preserved in brine or in vinegar;
specifically : a cucumber that has been so preserved

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