onion

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A round vegetable with a strong smell and taste, made of layers and used in cooking.

   My eyes are stinging from the chopped onions.

2. 2
   noun

   The plant that produces this vegetable.

   Rows of onions grew along the edge of the garden.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Onion entered English in the late Middle English period and comes ultimately from a Latin word for a large pearl. In nonstandard Latin that word was applied to a variety of onion whose single bulb did not produce shoots.

From Middle English onyoun, oynoun, from Old French oignon, from Latin ūniōnem, accusative of ūniō (“onion”), which had also been borrowed into Old English as yne, ynnelēac (“onion”) (> Middle English hynne-leac, henne-leac). Also displaced Middle English knelek (literally “knee-leek”) and the inherited term ramsons. * (soy): Stems from a 4chan word filter which changes the word soy to onions. The word filter was implemented in relation to the "alpha onion eater" meme, which is depicted as the direct opposite of the soy boy.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary