garlic

A2 Topic:Plants & Agriculture

US /ˈɡɑɹlɪk/ UK /ˈɡɑːlɪk/ See IPA manual

Freq #7149

Meanings

1

noun
A plant with a strong-tasting bulb, used to add flavour to food.

She added two cloves of garlic to the tomato sauce.
2

verb
To add garlic to food for flavour.

He garlicked the bread before putting it in the oven.

Verb forms

Verb forms are not available for this word yet.

Thesaurus

Word family

Related forms leek

Appears in

Phrases (1)

See all

garlic clove
one of the separate small sections that make up a garlic bulb

Noun + noun

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English garlek, garlik, from Old English gārlēac (“garlic”, literally “spear-leek”), from gār ("spear"; in reference to its sharp, tapering leaves) + lēac (“leek”). Cognate with Scots garlic (“garlic”), Faroese geirleykur (“garlic”), Icelandic geirlaukur (“garlic”).

garlek Middle English gārlēac Old English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Plants & Agriculture

External links

# garlic

**Type:** Word
**Level:** A2
**Part of speech:** noun, verb
**IPA (US):** /ˈɡɑɹlɪk/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈɡɑːlɪk/
**Frequency rank:** 7149

## Meanings
1. A plant with a strong-tasting bulb, used to add flavour to food.
2. To add garlic to food for flavour.

## Examples
- She added two cloves of garlic to the tomato sauce.
- He garlicked the bread before putting it in the oven.

## Related Forms
- leek

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: garlek
- Root: gārlēac

## Etymology
Inherited from Middle English garlek, garlik, from Old English gārlēac (“garlic”, literally “spear-leek”), from gār ("spear"; in reference to its sharp, tapering leaves) + lēac (“leek”). Cognate with Scots garlic (“garlic”), Faroese geirleykur (“garlic”), Icelandic geirlaukur (“garlic”).

## AI Etymology
Garlic is inherited from Middle English garlek, garlik, from Old English gārlēac (“garlic”, literally “spear-leek”), from gār ("spear"; in reference to its sharp, tapering leaves) + lēac (“leek”). Cognate with Scots garlic (“garlic”), Faroese geirleykur (“garlic”), Icelandic geirlaukur (“garlic”). In current use, the main senses are “A plant with a strong-tasting bulb, used to add flavour to food” and “To add garlic to food for flavour”.

## Topics
- Plants & Agriculture

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