Artichoke

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈɑɹ.tɪˌtʃoʊk/

Definitions

1. A flowering plant belonging to the thistle family, known for its edible immature buds and serrated leaves, commonly used in cooking and garnishing dishes
2. A cultivated plant characterized by its unique edible flower heads and textured leaves, often featured in various culinary recipes
3. A thistle-related plant valued for its edible buds and distinctive leaves, widely known for enhancing dishes in culinary practices

Etymology: Hidden at the front of artichoke is the Arabic word for "the." The vegetable was "al-khurshūf" in Arabic, and when Spanish speakers borrowed it they kept the article, treating "al-" as part of the name. Everything since has been a long chain of reshaping, and English added the last link. The plant itself is old Mediterranean stock. Greeks and Romans knew it, but the fat cultivated bud we eat today seems to have been bred in North Africa. The Arabic name may reach further back still: one proposed source is a Middle Persian compound of "xār," thorn, and "čōp," stick. That trail is uncertain, but a thorny stick is a fair description of the wild plant. From Arabic the word took two separate roads into Europe. One ran from the Qairawān region of Tunisia to Sicily, and there Italian borrowed it without the article, which is why standard Italian says "carciofo." The other ran through Muslim Spain. Andalusian Arabic "kharshúf" became Old Spanish "alcarchofa," with "al-" still attached. That Spanish form travelled north into Provence, where Occitan speakers reshaped it as "archichaut," "arquichaut" and "artichaut." From there it crossed into northern Italy as Lombard "articioch," "articiocco" in Italian spelling. Its middle was probably nudged by Italian "ciocco," a stump, which the squat bud rather resembles. The cultivated plant had reached Italy by the mid-fifteenth century, and the Arabic word reached the peninsula by two different routes, giving two different-sounding words. English took the northern Italian form. The plant came to England in the reign of Henry VIII, and the word is first recorded in the 1530s. Nobody was sure how to spell it. Early writers produced "archecokk," "hortichock," "artychough" and "hartichoake," each one an attempt to turn a strange foreign sound into something English. The ending that won was "choke," probably because English speakers heard their own word in it. This is folk etymology: a borrowed word is quietly reshaped to sound as if it meant something. The hairy, inedible tuft at the heart of the bud is now called the choke, so the plant's anatomy has been named after the folk etymology rather than the other way round. The cardoon, the artichoke's close botanical cousin, travelled a much shorter road. Its name came through French and Provençal "cardon" from Late Latin "cardo," thistle, a relative of Latin "carduus," which may go back to a root meaning "to scrape" that also lies behind harsh. The two vegetables are nearly the same plant, but their names took very different routes: one came up from Latin through southern France, while artichoke was carried from Arabic through Spain, Provence and Lombardy before reaching Tudor England.

Synonyms: vegetable, thistle, globe artichoke