Porree

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A vegetable of the onion family with long white stems and flat green leaves, related to the leek
2. An old name for the leek, a mild onion-like plant whose blanched stalks are eaten as a vegetable
3. The long-stemmed allium known as leek, grown for its edible layered base and used in soups and stews

Etymology: "Porree" is an older English spelling of the vegetable now usually called leek, and the two words are the same thing in different clothes. The form "porree" came into English from Old French "porree," which in turn descends from Latin "porrum," the name the Romans gave to the leek. Its ancestry is fairly direct: the Romans grew leeks widely, and the word spread through the Romance languages in forms like French "poireau" and Italian "porro." English had its own word all along. "Leek" comes from Old English "lēac," a word shared with other Germanic languages, so English speakers were naming the vegetable from a native root centuries before "porree" arrived. The two words ran side by side, and "porree" lingered in cookery and botanical writing as a borrowed, slightly fancier name, while "leek" stayed the everyday term. Its use today is mostly restricted to older texts and to certain recipes and seed catalogues.