Standard Lemma guide

hominy

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • /ˈhɒmɪni/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • homophone: harmony (non-rhotic, father-bother merger, weak vowel merger)
  • CMU ARPABET: HH AA1 M IH0 N IY0 Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A food made from hulled corn (maize) kernels soaked in lye water, rinsed, then cooked and eaten; or, the rinsed kernels are dried and coarsely ground into hominy grits.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: uncountable, usually

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: nixtamal

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

hulled corn with the bran and germ removed

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: corn, edible corn

Narrower terms: lye hominy, pearl hominy

History

Etymology

First recorded in 1629. From Powhatan ("Virginia Algonquian"), though the exact source word is in question: suggestions include uskatahomen, appuminnéonash (“parched corn”), and rokohamin (“parched, ground corn”), the last yielding also the unclipped rockahominy.

Across languages

Translations

19 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Aymara: mut'i — a food made from hulled maize
  • Bulgarian: качамак (kačamak) — a food made from hulled maize
  • Chamorro: eskommi (CNMI) — a food made from hulled maize
  • French: maïs lessivé — a food made from hulled maize
  • Indonesian: homini — a food made from hulled maize
  • Mopan Maya: k'u'um — a food made from hulled maize
  • Navajo: bił haʼnigáhí — a food made from hulled maize
  • Ojibwe: gijikonayezigan — a food made from hulled maize
  • Polish: mamałyga — a food made from hulled maize
  • Quechua: mut'i — a food made from hulled maize
  • Spanish: nixtamal — a food made from hulled maize
  • Spanish: nistayol — a food made from hulled maize
  • Spanish: nesquisa — a food made from hulled maize
  • Spanish: nishtamal — a food made from hulled maize
  • Spanish: nistamal (Mesoamerica) — a food made from hulled maize
  • Spanish: nesquiza — a food made from hulled maize
  • Spanish: nixtayol (nishtayol) — a food made from hulled maize
  • Tagalog: lagkitan — a food made from hulled maize
  • Unami: pxiskteyo — a food made from hulled maize