Plural of gourd; hard-shelled fruits of plants in the cucumber family, often used as decorations or containers when dried.
From Old French 'gourde', derived from Latin 'cucurbita', meaning squash or gourd. The word traveled through Romance languages and entered Middle English, eventually becoming our modern 'gourd.'
Gourds were so important to ancient civilizations that archaeologists find them in 10,000-year-old settlements—people used them as the original containers for water and food long before pottery existed.
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