hickory
noun
any of several North American trees belonging to the genus Carya, of the walnut family, certain species of which bear edible nuts or yield a valuable wood.
hickory
1 American
[hik-uh-ree, hik-ree]
/ ˈhɪk ə ri, ˈhɪk ri /
noun
-
hickories
plural
-
any of several North American trees belonging to the genus Carya, of the walnut family, certain species of which bear edible nuts or yield a valuable wood.
-
the wood of any of these trees.
-
a switch, stick, etc., of this wood.
-
Baseball Slang. a baseball bat.
-
Also called hickory cloth, hickory stripe. a strong fabric of twill construction, used chiefly in the manufacture of work clothes.
Hickory
2
American
[hik-uh-ree, hik-ree]
/ ˈhɪk ə ri, ˈhɪk ri /
noun
hickory
British
/ ˈhɪkərɪ /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of hickory
First recorded in 1610–20, earlier pohickery, from Virginia Algonquian ( English spelling) pocohiquara, the name of a milky drink prepared from hickory nuts
Explanation
A hickory is a deciduous tree, and it's also the name of its wood and the edible nut it produces. Wood from hickory trees is extremely hard and durable. The word hickory comes from the Algonquian pawcohiccora, the rich liquid that was extracted from hickory nuts and used as a beverage, cooking oil, and ingredient in many dishes. Besides being an important food source, North American hickory trees were used by indigenous peoples to make tools and weapons from the hard wood. Hickory bark was used to make fabric dyes and lye for soap. Today, wooden objects that need to be strong — like baseball bats, floorboards, and drumsticks — are often made from hickory.
Vocabulary lists containing hickory
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
I like their sandwiches, or the hickory burger with cheese, and there’s good French fries.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 20, 2026
And Joq is genuinely fascinated by the way hickory smoke mellows and rounds out a pungent blue cheese.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 4, 2025
The kitchen also follows the same aesthetic as the rest of the home and is adorned in wood cabinetry, a wooden island, and hand-hewn hickory flooring.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 26, 2025
Customers are increasingly being lured by brands like TimberTech, which dispense with wood altogether in favor of polyvinyl chloride patterned to resemble mahogany, teak, or hickory.
From Barron's ● Nov. 7, 2025
Those same problems of slow growth and fast squirrels probably also explain why beech and hickory trees, heavily exploited as wild trees for their nuts by Europeans and Native Americans, respectively, were also not domesticated.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Bargatze grew up in Old Hickory, a Nashville suburb.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
As part of the agreement, Corning will add capacity to its optical cable manufacturing facility in Hickory, N.C., where Meta will be the “anchor customer,” and expand its manufacturing footprint across the state.
From Barron's ● Jan. 27, 2026
At Hickory Hill, her children’s days had brimmed with well-planned activities, Brad Blank, a close friend of her children, told Vanity Fair in 1997.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2024
Her mums help as she reads "Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock…"
From BBC ● Feb. 13, 2024
A wartime general and president beloved by many Americans as Old Hickory and the Hero of New Orleans, he was second in stature only to George Washington as the nation’s most admired leader.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
“I estimated through my work that it would literally take centuries for native forests” full of oaks, walnuts, hickories and tulip poplars to return, he says.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 13, 2020
He says certain trees like scarlet oaks and hickories have potential for colorful displays if they get rain in early October.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 1, 2019
Surrounded by tall hickories, ash and oak, it is mostly covered in shade, a condition not ideal for grass.
From Seattle Times ● May 2, 2019
As a whole, the deciduous forest was home to many different tree species—oaks, beeches, maples, basswoods, hickories, chestnut, ashes, elms, birches and poplars—but different types of trees predominated in different regions.
From Scientific American ● Mar. 1, 2014
They were like white bouquets God had stuck in the stands of ancient oaks and hickories, glistening green in their own new growth.
From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
