Cucumber

CU'CUMBER. Num 11:5. A garden-vegetable well known in this counrty. Squirting Cucumber. (From Eiehm.) c. Section of the Fruit. a. Plant. b. Fruit. Cucumbers, melons, and onions are now among the leading productions of Egypt, and are also commonly cultivated in Palestine. Besides our own kind, another (Cucumis chafe) is cultivated, having a fruit with less flavor, but larger. "Cucumbers form an important item in the summer food of the poor, and are eaten with the rind on, without any condiment. In the oppressive heat of summer they form a most grateful vegetable. I remember seeing dinner served out to an Arab school in Jerusalem, which consisted of a thin barley-cake and a raw cucumber to each boy."-Tristram. The "lodge in the garden of cucumbers," Isa 1:8, rudely constructed of poles and boughs, may still be seen in many fields. It is intended to shelter a watchman set to protect the fruit from jackals and other animals, as well as from thievish men. When the crop is over and the lodge forsaken by the keeper, "the poles fall down, or lean every which way, and those green boughs with which it is shaded will have been scattered by the wind, leaving only a ragged, sprawling wreck, a most affecting type of utter desolation."-Thoinson. Job seems to have had such ruins in mind. Job 27:18.

CU'CUMBER. Num 11:5. A garden-vegetable well known in this counrty. Squirting Cucumber. (From Eiehm.)
c. Section of the Fruit. a. Plant. b. Fruit. Cucumbers, melons, and onions are now among the leading productions of Egypt, and are also commonly cultivated in Palestine. Besides our own kind, another (Cucumis chafe) is cultivated, having a fruit with less flavor, but larger. "Cucumbers form an important item in the summer food of the poor, and are eaten with the rind on, without any condiment. In the oppressive heat of summer they form a most grateful vegetable. I remember seeing dinner served out to an Arab school in Jerusalem, which consisted of a thin barley-cake and a raw cucumber to each boy."-Tristram. The "lodge in the garden of cucumbers," Isa 1:8, rudely constructed of poles and boughs, may still be seen in many fields. It is intended to shelter a watchman set to protect the fruit from jackals and other animals, as well as from thievish men. When the crop is over and the lodge forsaken by the keeper, "the poles fall down, or lean every which way, and those green boughs with which it is shaded will have been scattered by the wind, leaving only a ragged, sprawling wreck, a most affecting type of utter desolation."-Thoinson. Job seems to have had such ruins in mind. Job 27:18.

Part of speech: noun (n.)

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 or Cucumis Colocynthis. SeeColocynth. -- Cucumber beetle. (Zoöl.) (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 (M. 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.