eggplant
Pluraleggplants
- 1A plant of the species Solanum melongena, or its edible fruit, which has smooth, glossy, usually dark purple skin.
The recipe calls for one large eggplant, peeled and cut into cubes.
Gardeners in warm climates can grow eggplant from late spring through the summer.
Note
The name describes a vegetable that no longer looks like it: egg plus plant, first given only to a white, egg-shaped variety. Eggplant is the usual word in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. Aubergine is the other name for the same fruit. Count it for the whole fruit (two eggplants), and leave it uncountable for the food (eggplant and shiitake "meatballs").
- 2A dark purple color, resembling the skin of the eggplant fruit.
The designer chose eggplant for the fall collection's wool coats.
Eggplant looks elegant against gold accents in a living room.
Similaraubergine
Note
The color takes its shade from the dark purple skin of the fruit, even though the name first belonged to a white variety. Its range is narrower than the fruit word's: it belongs to US and Canadian usage. It can be counted like other color nouns, as in a deep eggplant or a range of eggplants and plums.
- 3A halfpipe trick consisting of a 180-degree backside rotated invert, with the front hand planted on the lip of the wall.
She pulled off an eggplant at the top of the halfpipe.
The judges scored his eggplant high for its smooth, controlled invert.
Note
Skateboarders and snowboarders share this trick name, and the move is the same in either sport. It belongs to the inverts, where the rider goes upside down at the lip of the wall. Two details set it apart: the front hand does the planting, and the rider makes a backside half-turn on the way back in. Riders pull off, land or stick an eggplant, and it is counted like any other trick.
- 4A derogatory and offensive slur for a Black person, used mainly by Italian-Americans.
He flung the word at the family across the street, calling them eggplant as they unloaded the moving truck.
Her grandfather still called the new tenants eggplant, a habit that made the whole family wince.
Note
Quentin Tarantino's True Romance (1993) gives this slur to Dennis Hopper's Clifford Worley, who taunts a Sicilian with being "part eggplant." In Wendy Coakley-Thompson's Back to Life (2004), a family shouts it alongside the n-word. That pairing shows its weight: sounding like a vegetable makes it no milder. Quote it or discuss it, but never use it of anyone.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of eggplant apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
Formed from egg + plant, the word was originally used only for the white, egg-shaped variety of the plant.