Cucumber n. (Bot.) A creeping plant, and its fruit, of several species of the genus Cucumis, esp. Cucumis sativus, the unripe fruit of which is eaten either fresh or picked. Also, similar plants or fruits of several other genera. See below.
Bitter cucumber (Bot.), the Citrullus Colocynthis syn. Cucumis Colocynthis. See Colocynth.
Cucumber beetle, (Zool.)
(a)
A small, black flea-beetle (Crepidodera cucumeris), which destroys the leaves of cucumber, squash, and melon vines.
(b)
The squash beetle.
Cucumber tree.
(a)
A large ornamental or shade tree of the genus Magnolia (Magnolia acuminata), so called from a slight resemblance of its young fruit to a small cucumber.
(b)
An East Indian plant (Averrhoa Bilimbi) which produces the fruit known as bilimbi.
Jamaica cucumber, Jerusalem cucumber, the prickly-fruited gherkin (Cucumis Anguria).
Snake cucumber, a species (Cucumis flexuosus) remarkable for its long, curiously-shaped fruit.
Squirting cucumber, a plant (Ecbalium Elaterium) whose small oval fruit separates from the footstalk when ripe and expels its seeds and juice with considerable force through the opening thus made. See Elaterium.
Star cucumber, a climbing weed (Sicyos angulatus) with prickly fruit.
... 20. Cucumber, Cucumis; tho' very cold and moist, the most approved Sallet alone, or in Composition, of all the Vinaigrets, to sharpen the Appetite, and cool the Liver, [16]&c. if rightly prepar'd; that is, by rectifying the vulgar Mistake of altogether extracting the Juice, ... — Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn Read full book for free!
...cucumber and cut it in pieces two inches long, then peel away the dark green skin for one inch, leaving the other inch as it was. Set up each piece on end, scoop it out till nearly the bottom and fill up with bits of cold salmon or lobster in mayonnaise ... — The Belgian Cookbook • various various Read full book for free!
... eater was the most wonderful, for he walked on his knuckles, and strode majestically about, for all the world like a mammalian peacock, exhibiting his great tail. They also saw his tongue, like a yard of pink ribbon drawn out by an invisible hand from the tip of his long cucumber- shaped head. In the parrot-house the shrieking of a thousand parrots and cockatoos, all trying to shriek each other down, ... — Fan • Henry Harford Read full book for free!
... called him a thief but me. He was a great star in this same polite society I speak of. He fed hundreds of fat people on the money that ought to have gone into the fishermen's pockets; and he died after eating too much salmon and cucumber at his own table. Poetic justice, you know. There are stained glass windows up to his memory in two churches and tons of good white marble were wasted when they made his grave. But he was a thief, just as surely as ... — Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts Read full book for free!
... poet at the age of fifty in 1782. It is not a book that can be read with unmixed, or even with much, delight. It seldom rises above a good man's rhetoric. Cowper, instead of writing about himself and his pets, and his cucumber-frames, wrote of the wicked world from which he had retired, and the vices of which he could not attack with that particularity that makes satire interesting. The satires are not exactly dull, but they are lacking in force, either of wit or of passion. ... — The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd Read full book for free!
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