Slicing
Cucumbers grown to eat fresh are called slicing cucumbers. The main varieties of slicers mature on vines with large leaves that provide shading. They are mainly eaten in the unripe green form, since the ripe yellow form normally becomes bitter and sour. Slicers grown commercially for the North American market are generally longer, smoother, more uniform in color, and have a much tougher skin. Slicers in other countries are smaller and have a thinner, more delicate skin, often having fewer seeds and being sold in a plastic skin for protection. Sometimes these are known as English cucumbers. This variety may also be called a "telegraph cucumber", particularly in Australasia. Smaller slicing cucumbers can also be pickled.


Pickling
Pickling with brine, sugar, vinegar, and spices creates various, flavored products from cucumbers and other foods. Although any cucumber can be pickled, commercial pickles are made from cucumbers specially bred for uniformity of length-to-diameter ratio and lack of voids in the flesh. Those cucumbers intended for pickling, called picklers, grow to about 7 to 10 cm (3 to 4 in) long and 2.5 cm (1 in) wide. Compared to slicers, picklers tend to be shorter, thicker, less regularly shaped, and have bumpy skin with tiny white or black-dotted spines. Color can vary from creamy yellow to pale or dark green. The process of pickling led to the use of paraffin wax as a seal for jars used to preserve pickled and other preserved foods, and to the Mason jar made from thick glass able to tolerate high temperatures used in processing pickles and other foods for long-term shelf-life. The liquid made from pickling is called "pickle juice."

Gherkin
Gherkins, also called cornichons, baby dills, or baby pickles, are small, whole, unsliced cucumbers, typically those 1 inch (2.5 cm) to 5 inches (13 cm) in length, often with bumpy skin, and pickled in variable combinations of brine, vinegar, spices, and sugar. In the United Kingdom, gherkins may be prepared predominantly in vinegar, imparting an acidic flavor "punch" as a side-dish for meals.

Although gherkins may be grown in greenhouses, they are commonly grown as a field crop, processed locally, and packaged in jars in Canada, the United States, and India. India, Turkey, Ukraine and Mexico compete as producers for the global gherkin market, with the European Union, United States, Canada, and Israel as major importers.

The word gherkin derived in the mid-17th century from early modern Dutch, gurken or augurken for "small pickled cucumber". The term, West Indian gherkin, has been applied to Cucumis anguria L., a related species of Cucumis sativus, the most common cucumber plant.