Sparrowgrass

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A plant of the lily family cultivated for its tender green or white shoots, which are eaten as a vegetable
2. A garden vegetable consisting of the young edible stalks of a perennial plant, typically prepared by steaming or roasting
3. A cultivated plant whose crisp, elongated shoots are harvested and served as a delicacy in cooking

Etymology: "Sparrowgrass" is an old, informal name for asparagus, and it is a case of folk etymology: English speakers reshaped an unfamiliar foreign word into two familiar ones. The vegetable's name came into English from Latin and Greek, but over the centuries it was heard and repeated as "sparrow" plus "grass," a pairing that made no botanical sense yet sounded perfectly natural. The result was a term common in everyday speech for generations, especially among people who might not have seen the vegetable written down. Its two parts remain plain English words, sparrow the small bird and grass the familiar plant, and the combination is a compound in the ordinary sense, even though its meaning was reached by mistake rather than by design.

Synonyms: asparagus