| Word | American Tract Society - Definition |
| HUSKS | The prodigal son desired to feed on the husks, or pods, given to the hogs, Lu 15:16. The Greek word here used means the carob- beans, the fruit of a tree of the same name. This fruit is common in all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean: it is suffered to ripen and grow dry on the tree; the poor eat it, and cattle are fattened with it. The tree, the Ceratonia Siliqua, is an evergreen of a middle size, full of branches, and abounding with round dark green leaves, an inch or two in diameter. The blossoms are little red clusters, with yellowish stalks. The fruits are flat brownish pods, from six to eight inches long, and an inch or more broad: they resemble the pods of our locust-tree; and are composed of two husks, separated by membranes into several cells, and containing flat, shining seeds, and when ripe a sweetish, honey like kind of juice. In all probability, their crooked figure occasioned their being called, in Greek, keratia, which signifies little horns. The tree is called by the Germans, Johannisbrodaum, that is, "John's-bread-tree," because John the Baptist was supposed to have lived on it fruit. |