asparagus

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the tender young shoots of Asparagus officinalis, eaten as a vegetable

   She roasted the asparagus with olive oil and a little salt.

2. 2
   noun

   a perennial plant of the genus Asparagus, especially the species cultivated for its edible shoots

   The asparagus in the garden produced new spears each spring.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

The vegetable was originally called sparagus, from medieval Latin. In the mid-17th century its unfamiliar name was reshaped by folk etymology into the more English-sounding sparrow-grass. Sparrow-grass remained the polite name during the 18th century, but asparagus returned to literary and polite use in the 19th century, leaving sparrow-grass as a dialect form.

From Latin asparagus, from Ancient Greek asparagos. In English dialect the unfamiliar word was reshaped as sparrowgrass, a folk-etymological form once common enough to enter dictionaries. Asparagine, an amino acid first isolated from asparagus juice, was named from the plant.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary