gherkin

From a form of Dutch gurk, an archaic variant of augurk (“small pickled cucumber”), from Low German, from Middle Low German agurke, augurke, probably via Slavic (compare Polish ogórek), from Byzantine Greek ἀγγούριον (angoúrion, “cucumber”). The underlying Dutch form may be a diminutive (gurkijn) or perhaps more probably the plural (gurken), which was then associated with the English suffix -kin (itself incidentally from Dutch or Low German). Compare German Gurke.