rhubarb

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a garden plant with large leaves and long, thick, sour-tasting stalks that are cooked with sugar as food

   The gardener cut several red rhubarb stalks for a pie.

2. 2
   noun

   the edible leafstalks of this plant, treated in cooking like a tart fruit

   She stewed the rhubarb with sugar until it was soft.

3. 3
   noun

   the dried root of certain Asian Rheum species, formerly used as a laxative medicine

   The apothecary kept powdered rhubarb among his imported medicines.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Rhubarb entered English in the medieval period and ultimately goes back to Greek rhabarbarum, whose second element is related to barbaros “foreign.” The name reflects the plant’s distant origins in China and Tibet. It first referred to a medicinal plant; the edible variety is recorded from 1760.

From Middle English rubarbe, through Old French and Medieval Latin rheubarbarum, from Greek rhēon barbaron, literally 'foreign rhubarb.' The plant and medicinal root reached Europe from Asia, and the name was later applied to the familiar garden crop.

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary