corned

1. 1
   adjective

   Preserved by being packed or treated in salt.

   Corned beef became a staple ration aboard long sea voyages.

   She simmered the corned brisket slowly until it was tender.

   Similarsalted, pickled, brined

   Oppositefresh

   Note

   Here the grains are salt. The verb corn means to preserve with coarse salt, so the corn in corned beef is the salt crystal, not a cereal. The word applies to meat and lives mostly in fixed phrases, above all corned beef, down to the corned beef sandwich on a competitive eater's list. It is the same granular idea as the "granulated" meaning, turned toward the kitchen.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of corn.

   Farmers corned their pork in barrels to last through the cold months.

   The gunpowder was corned into small grains so it would burn more evenly.

   Note

   One spelling serves the past tense, the past participle and all three adjectives. It is the regular -ed form of corn, so it takes have in the perfect (they had corned the pork) and be in the passive (the powder was corned). The verb is transitive throughout, including an obsolete sense, to make someone drunk, and a Jamaican and Multicultural London English slang use, to riddle with bullets.

3. 3
   adjective

   Consisting of small grains; granulated.

   Corned gunpowder burns more steadily than fine dust.

   The recipe called for corned salt rather than the fine table kind.

   Similargranulated, granular, coarse

   Oppositefine, powdered

   Note

   Here a grain is a granule rather than a cereal crop, though one word covers both. The noun corn names a staple grain, and the verb corn means to form a substance into grains. Corned describes the result, as in corned gunpowder or corned salt. It is not comparable: a powder is corned or it is not, never more corned. Granulated is the everyday equivalent.

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