hominy

English

Etymology

First recorded in 1629. From Powhatan ("Virginia Algonquian"), though the exact source word is in question: suggestions include uskatahomen,^[1] appuminnéonash (“parched corn”),^[2][3] and rokohamin (“parched, ground corn”),^[4] the last yielding also the unclipped rockahominy.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɒmɪni/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Homophone: harmony (non-rhotic, father-bother merger, weak vowel merger)

Noun

hominy (usually uncountable, plural hominies)

1. A food made from hulled corn (maize) kernels soaked in lye water, rinsed, then cooked and eaten; or, the rinsed kernels are dried and coarsely ground into hominy grits.

   Synonym: nixtamal

   • 1953, James Baldwin, “The Seventh Day”, in Go Tell It on the Mountain (Penguin Classics), London: Penguin Books, published 2001, →ISBN:

     Then his plate was put before him: hominy grits and a scrap of bacon. He wanted to cry, like a child: ‘But, Mama, it's my birthday!’

Derived terms

• hominy snow

Translations

a food made from hulled maize

Aymara: mut'i Bulgarian: качамак (bg) m (kačamak) French: maïs lessivé (fr) Mopan Maya: k'u'um Navajo: bił haʼnigáhí Ojibwe: gijikonayezigan Polish: mamałyga (pl) f Quechua: mut'i Spanish: nixtamal (es) m Tagalog: lagkitan Unami: pxiskteyo

References

1. Angus Stevenson, editor (2010), “hominy”, in Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford University Press
2. John Ayto, editor (2002), “hominy”, in An A-Z of Food and Drink, Oxford university Press
3. Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “hominy”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
4. listed in William Strachey's vocabulary of Powhatan

Further reading

• hominy on Wikipedia.Wikipedia