Cabbage

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈkæbɪd͡ʒ/

Definitions

1. A round vegetable with tightly packed green leaves that is rich in nutrients, it is commonly featured in many dishes across different cuisines, serving as both a staple food and a healthful ingredient
2. A green, leafy vegetable with dense layers often used in diverse culinary applications, it serves as a nutritious staple in various diets and can be transformed into salads, stews, or fermented foods
3. A leafy vegetable with a spherical head formed by overlapping leaves, widely cultivated for culinary use and valued for its vitamin content

Etymology: The vegetable takes its name from a word for "head," and the leaf and the head share a sense of roundness. In Anglo-Norman French, "caboche" meant "head," a northern variant of "caboce," and Middle English borrowed it in the sense of a head, then extended it to a plant whose leaves form a compact round mass. Some scholars trace the French word to Latin "caput," "head," while others suggest a different origin: "ca-," an expressive prefix, joined to "boce," meaning "hump" or "bump," the same root that gave English "boss." The name's earliest English uses were not limited to the vegetable. Middle English "cabage" also named a certain fish, which shows how loosely the word was applied to rounded, lumpish things before it settled on the plant. The exact route through which the word reached its modern vegetable sense remains uncertain, and its ultimate origin is debated.

Synonyms: vegetable, greens, kale