Boabe

Boabe is the plural form of boabă, a Romanian noun that denotes a small, hard seed or kernel of a plant. In common usage, boabe refers to edible seeds as individual units, rather than to the whole fruit or pod. The term is widely used in agriculture, cooking, and trade to describe the seeds themselves.

Common expressions include boabe de porumb (corn kernels), boabe de fasole (beans), and boabe de mazăre (peas). The word can also refer to seed stock intended for sowing, for example when counting quantities of seeds for planting. In Romanian-speaking areas such as Romania and Moldova, boabe is a standard word in both rural and urban contexts.

The singular form is boabă, and boabe typically functions as a countable noun when specifying a number or weight of seeds. While the meaning centers on seeds, context determines whether a speaker refers to the seed itself, the component inside a fruit or pod, or the act of sowing seeds.

The term is specific to Romanian, and cognates in neighboring languages may vary. Boabe has no universal, fixed equivalent across languages, though parallel words exist in other linguistic traditions for seeds or kernels.