kurakkann.
/ˈkʊrəkkɑːn/ A type of cereal grass, Eleusine coracana (Indian raggee), which is extensively grown in chenas in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) where flour from its grain forms a staple food of the poorer villagers.
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the world > food and drink > food > corn, cereals, or grain > [noun] > other grains
buckwheat1548
brank1577
bullimong1578
sesame1600
block-wheat1611
fundi1670
kurakkan1681
manna seeds1764
manna1780
teff1790
bajra1813
semsem1866
sesame grain1867
the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > particular food plant or plant product > cereal, corn, or grain > [noun] > other grains
buckwheat1548
brank1577
bullimong1578
block-wheat1611
kurakkan1681
rice1713
teff1790
bajra1813
1681 R. Knox Hist. Relation Ceylon i. iii. 11 There are divers other sorts of Corn, which serve the People for food in the absence of Rice... There is Coracan, which is a small seed like Mustard-seed. This they grind to meal or beat in a Mortar, and so make cakes of it.
1824 A. Moon Catal. Indigenous & Exotic Plants Ceylon 9 Eleusine... 1 coracana, common,..Kurakkan,..Ceylon, cult.
1864 G. H. K. Thwaites Enumeratio Plantarum Zeylaniæ v. 371 E. Coracana, Gærtn. (nom. vulg. ‘Koorakkan’), is extensively cultivated by the Cinghalese as a food grain.
1900 J. D. Hooker in H. Trimen Hand-bk. Flora Ceylon V. 277 The Sinhalese ‘Kurrakan’..is a very stout prolific form of this, with the spikelets crowded in many series, and a globose rugose seed. It is extensively cultivated for its grain in Ceylon.
1913 L. Woolf Village in Jungle i. 10 When the rains fall in November the ground is sown broadcast with millet or kurakkan.
1971 Ceylon Daily News 18 Sept. 4/6 In the villages around here the traditional food has been kurakkan and curd.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1976; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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