What is the difference between corn and maize? Almost nothing! Maize and corn both refer to the same type of cereal grain. The difference is that corn is used in American English while maize is in British English.
Although the two words are often used interchangeably, they do possess distinctly different meanings. Maize is not commonly employed in reference to food products that are made of maize grains, while corn is almost always employed in relation to food items.
In formal, scientific, or international contexts, corn is not a preferred term. These are the contexts where maize is used instead.
Both terms corn and maize denote what is arguably the most significant staple food in the world: a cereal crop with yellow or white kernals in a cob encased with a husk. It is rare to find a world population that does not consume maize.
Like every other word, ‘corn’ has faced the test of time and evolved, which makes it difficult to pin down a single definition as one term is bound to be associated with many other geographical regions. Aside from geography, the term differs in meaning due to culture and time.
What is Corn?
By definition, corn is best defined as the term in reference to a type of cereal grain derived from the seeds of a species of grass. Corn is said to have come off years of selective breeding to fit the modern citizens of the world’s population.
The meaning of corn varies from one region to another. The 17 century usage of the word corn is used to denote the main crop in the region of discussion. In England, corn referred to wheat, whilst Scots called oats corn.
The use of the word corn to signify the principal crop of the region is now obsolete. English speakers stopped associating the word with wheat, as Germans ceased using it in reference to rye.
What Is Maize?
When Christopher Columbus stopped at one of the islands near Northern Antilles, the locals known as ‘The Tahino people’ presented him and his team with the main crop of the island.
Maize is a scientific and international term accepted for corn as it pertains to only one grain and cannot be confused with other food products.
Differences Between Corn and Maize
A simpler distinguishing metric to note between the two terms is to akanually their use concerning the crop’s growth stage. The word maize refers to the food crop mainly before harvesting.
An additional way of considering the difference between the two terms is like this: All maize is corn, but not all corn is maize. Depending on the region, corn denotes an assortment of grains, while maize will always refer to the crop known otherwise known as corn.
WIn technical or scientific discussions concerning corn, the word maize is preferred over the vague and general corn. Like in genetics, corn is always termed as maize.
If the difference between corn and maize is not bewildering enough, there are also corn mazes. Corn mazes are complex and overly intricate guides cut into fields of corn