US /liːk/
Homophones
noun name Freq #32206

Meanings

  1. 1
    noun

    A long vegetable related to the onion, with a white stem and green leaves and a mild flavour.

    He chopped a leek for the soup.

Thesaurus

Word family
Forms leeks
Derived forms houseleekleek-greenleekishleeklikeleeky
Related forms garlicleak

Etymology

From Middle English leke, leek, lek, from Old English lēac (“a garden herb, leek, onion, garlic”), from Proto-West Germanic *lauk, from Proto-Germanic *lauką, *laukaz (“leek, onion”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewg- (“to bend”). Cognate with Dutch look (“garlic, leek”), German Low German Look (“leek”), German Lauch (“leek, allium”), Danish løg (“onion”), Swedish lök (“onion”), Icelandic laukur (“onion, leek, garlic”). See garlic.

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