broccoli
Pluralbroccolis, broccoli
- 1A plant of the cabbage family whose tree-shaped green flower heads and thick stalk are eaten as a vegetable.
The farmer planted rows of broccoli in the cool early spring.
He roasted the broccoli with olive oil, garlic, and a squeeze of lemon.
Note
An Italian plural taken whole into English in 1699. Broccolo meant a cabbage sprout or head and was a diminutive of brocco, "shoot," from Latin broccus, "pointed, projecting." The same brocco gave English brocade. In everyday use it is a mass noun, as in a plate of broccoli. The countable plural broccolis appears when growers talk about kinds, as in oriental broccolis such as kailaan and nabana.
- 2A slang name for marijuana, used especially in the United States.
The dealer sold him an ounce of broccoli down by the docks.
Cops found a stash of broccoli hidden in the trunk of the car.
Similarweed, cannabis, dope, grass, ganja
Note
Slang that works by a pun. In Skrilla's "Kodak Black" (2014), the speaker smokes broccoli because his mother told him to eat his veggies. Migos roll a cigar full of it in "T-Shirt" (2017). It is US slang and belongs in casual talk. Unless the context clearly points to the drug, listeners will hear the vegetable.
- 3Plural of broccolo.
Note
Here the word keeps its Italian grammar: broccoli is read as the plural of a singular broccolo, which is itself a rare form. Most English speakers never meet that singular. They use broccoli as a mass noun, or broccolis for kinds. Broccolo for a single head will strike readers as unusual, because the Italian plural behind the vegetable is otherwise invisible in English.
Practice
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Origin
First recorded in 1699, from Italian broccoli, the plural of broccolo ("cabbage sprout, head"), a diminutive of brocco ("shoot, sprout"). This goes back to Latin broccus ("pointed, sharp, projecting"), possibly of Gaulish origin and related to Proto-Celtic roots meaning "badger" or "tip, point."