celery
- 1The crisp stalks of the celery plant, eaten raw or cooked as a vegetable.
He crunched on a stalk of celery while reading the news.
The recipe calls for two cups of chopped celery.
Note
The kitchen sense, and the one most speakers mean. It is usually a mass noun, so a single piece is a stalk of celery rather than a celery. Botanically, the crisp part is the leafstalk, or petiole, and it is a base aromatic in French mirepoix. Harry E. Wedeck's Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs (1961) reports that in eighteenth-century France celery soup was used to whet the amorous appetite.
- 2A European herb of the carrot family, known scientifically as Apium graveolens.
Celery needs rich, damp soil and a long growing season to mature.
Farmers in the valley harvest celery from late summer into fall.
Note
The plant itself, and a borrowed name: English took it from French céleri, which came through Lombard sellero from Latin selīnum and Greek sélīnon. It displaced two older English names, march and smallage, the second of which meant the wild plant. As the name of the growing herb it is usually a mass noun, so you speak of a field of celery rather than of celeries.
- 3A pale yellow-green color resembling the stalks of the celery plant.
The designer paired celery with warm gray throughout the apartment.
Their wedding palette mixed celery, cream, and gold for a fresh spring look.
Practice
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Origin
From French céleri, from Lombard sellero, from Latin selīnum, in turn from Ancient Greek σέλῑνον (sélīnon). It displaced the older English words march and smallage.