gherkin

Meanings

1. A small cucumber, often pickled whole.
2. Pickled cucumber regardless of size; a pickle
3. The penis.

1. Alternative letter-case form of Gherkin.

1. The building at 30 St Mary Axe, a distinctively-shaped skyscraper in London, England

Etymology

From a form of Dutch gurk, an archaic variant of augurk (“small pickled cucumber”), from Low German, from Middle Low German agurke, augurke, probably via Slavic (compare Polish ogórek), from Byzantine Greek ἀγγούριον (angoúrion, “cucumber”). The underlying Dutch form may be a diminutive (gurkijn) or perhaps more probably the plural (gurken), which was then associated with the English suffix -kin (itself incidentally from Dutch or Low German). Compare German Gurke.