maize

maize (MAYZ) - n., a tall grass (Zea mays); the cereal grain it grows.



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More commonly (and confusingly) called corn in North American English, but this name is also known here. It was domesticated in southern Mexico from teosinte—specifically, from at least two of the four other species of Zea (exact parentage still hotly debated, and the teosinte name from Nahuatl)—and cultivated through most of the Americas before Columbus arrived, and it has since become the biggest harvest by weight of any crop worldwide. We got the name from Spanish maíz, from the Hispaniola Taíno name mahís/mahiz.

---L.