Brassica comes from Latin brassica ('cabbage'), a word of uncertain, possibly non-Indo-European, origin. The historical trail runs through brassica in Latin. The history must be left partly open, preserving the uncertainty rather than forcing a single unsupported ancestry. Used as a noun, brassica now means "a plant of the cabbage genus, including cabbage, mustard, and turnip", so the present definition can be read against the older forms and meanings. The same lexical family is also visible in derived forms such as brassicaceous and related forms such as brassicaceae. That uncertainty is part of the entry: the safest account is the attested form and the limited comparisons preserved with it.