Meanings
- uncountableIndian corn parched and pounded into meal (powder), used as food by Native Americans, sometimes mixed with maple sugar.
This preparation of corn was called nocake or nookick. [...] It was held to be the most nourishing food known, and in the smallest and most condensed form.
1898, Alice Morse Earle, “Indian Corn”, in Home Life in Colonial Days […], New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 1375 more examples
If their imperious occaſions cauſe them to travell, the beſt of their victuals for their journey is Nocake, (as they call it) which is nothing but Indian Corne parched in the hot aſhes; the aſhes being ſifted from it, it is afterwards beaten to powder, and put into a long leatherne bag, truſſed at their backe like a knapſacke; out of which they take thrice three ſpoonefulls a day, dividing it into three meales.
1634, William Wood, “Of Their Dyet, Cookery, Meale-times, and Hospitality at Their Kettles”, in Nevv Englands Prospect. […], London: […] Tho[mas] Cotes, for Iohn Bellamie, […], →OCLC, page 68A ſmall pouch of parched corn, ground or rather pounded into meal, and called Nuichicke, which is well enough tranſlated Nocake, would ſupport them ſeveral days in their travelling, when they could get no other proviſions; [...]
1760, [Thomas] Hutchinson, “Of the Original State of the Country, with Respect to the Inhabitants and Soil”, in The History of the Colony of Massachusets-Bay, […], 2nd edition, London: […] M. Richardson, […], →OCLC, page 465Nookhick or nokehick, the Indian name of the meal of parched corn, was pronounced nocake, by the English, who sometimes hired Indian women to prepare it for them. Winthrop says the parched corn was "turned almost inside outward, and was white and floury." It must have resembled our parched popcorn.
[1863, Sylvester Judd, chapter XXXII, in History of Hadley, including the Early History of Hatfield, South Hadley, Amherst and Granby, Massachusetts, […], Northampton, Mass.: […] Metcalf & Company, →OCLC, footnote ‡, page 366The Indians had not the art of making bread. Their boiled their corn [...] or they ate the parched kernels whole; or with a stone pestle and a wooden mortar they broke them up into meal, which, moistened with water into a paste, they called nookhik.¹ [Footnote 1: Nookhik, meal, (Eliot's Indian Bible,) was corrupted by the English into nocake.]
[1865, John Gorham Palfrey, chapter I, in The History of New England during the Stuart Dynasty. … In Three Volumes, volume I, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, book I (The Settlement), page 28The Puritans raised corn (or maize) which they got from the Indians; and they soon learned the virtues of "nocake"—a name derived from the Indian of noohkik. Nocake was made of selected Indian corn, parched in hot ashes, then well sifted and thoroughly pulverized. It was mixed with cold water and drunk. The early Virginians knew it as "rockahomonie." Nocake was the rudiment with which the New England folk began the study of foods prepared from Indian corn.
1920 November 1, George S. Bryan, “Good Eating in Puritan Days”, in The Mentor, volume 8, number 17 (number 213 overall), New York, N.Y.: Crowell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 35, column 1Synonyms: nokehick, nokehike, rokeag, yokeag, rokeage, yokeage
Synonyms & antonyms
nounIndian corn parched and pounded into meal (powder), used as food by Native Americans, sometimes mixed with maple sugar.
Origin
- Massachusettnookhik“nocake”
- Narragansettnokehick
- Algonquian
- Englishnocake
A respelling, probably influenced by cake, of nokehick, nokehike, which derives from an Algonquian language, probably Narragansett nokehick or Massachusett nookhik (“nocake”, literally “(that which is) pounded till soft”); the word is related to Abenaki nokhigan (“flour”), and English rokeag and yokeag.
More words from Algonquian, Narragansett, Massachusett
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
nocake. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nocake
“nocake.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nocake. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “nocake,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nocake.
Source: nocake on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.