Corncobs

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A particular part of a maize plant, specifically the central core that remains after the kernels have been removed
2. The firm, cylindrical structure from which grains of corn grow; often used in cooking or as animal fodder
3. The leftover ear of corn, consisting of the woody central axis after all the edible kernels have been taken off

Etymology: "Corncobs" is simply the plural of "corncob," a compound of "corn" and "cob." In the older sense, "cob" referred to the central core of an ear of maize, and the leftover woody axis after the kernels are stripped off is the object the word names. Its plainer meaning has a second life online: in 2011, a tweet from the Weird Twitter personality dril, in which a man furiously denies being owned as he transforms into a corncob, gave rise to an Internet slang sense of "corncob" that spread widely after 2017, when the word was reported in The Ringer and The New Statesman.