Indian corn

Where it comes from

From Indian + corn. Since the early 17th century. Before the Columbian Exchange, the English word corn meant any of various cereal grains, with usage much like the word grain is often used today. When maize, a New World crop, was introduced to English-speakers, they called it Indian corn as a natural term for "the kind of corn (grain) that comes from the Indies." The notion of the geography was very fuzzy at the time for most Europeans; most English speakers at the time did not have a clear notion that the East Indies and the West Indies were not the same thing or adjacent portions of one thing, so the word Indies encompassed vast overseas scope. Eventually English-speakers in North America came to use the word corn to mean maize when not otherwise specified, and they came to use the term Indian corn to mean a certain fancy type of maize.