Corn is a tall grain plant that produces large ears filled with kernels, which are the seeds we eat. When you bite into an ear of corn at a summer barbecue, you're eating kernels that grew in neat rows, protected by layers of green husks and topped with silky threads. Each kernel can be yellow, white, or even deep purple, depending on the variety.

Corn is one of the most important crops in human history. Native Americans domesticated corn from a wild grass called teosinte thousands of years ago in Mexico, transforming it into the productive plant we know today. They taught European colonists how to grow it, which helped those early settlements survive. Today, corn feeds billions of people worldwide and is used in thousands of products, from cornbread and tortillas to the fuel called ethanol that powers some cars.

The word also appears in some older expressions. In British English, corn can mean any grain crop, not just what Americans call corn (which the British call maize). And if you say something is corny, you mean it's so sentimental or old-fashioned that it makes people groan a little, like a joke your dad tells for the hundredth time.