DictionaryAI

onion

noun
UN-yuhn/ˈʌn.jən/

Pluralonions

6 meanings of onion

Practice

  1. 1
    vegetablenouncountable or uncountable
    The rounded, layered bulb of the plant Allium cepa, related to garlic, eaten raw or cooked as a vegetable and used to flavor food; also the plant itself.

    He caramelized two onions to spread over the steak.

    Add a diced onion and cook it until soft and golden.

    UsageCounted when whole or cut: two onions, a diced onion. As an ingredient, also some onion.

    Note

    The kitchen sense is an old one. A recipe of 1381 printed in Samuel Pegge's edition of The Forme of Cury already tells the cook "nym onyons" (take onions), with the spelling still close to its Old French source, oignon.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

  2. 2
    plant familynouncountable
    Any of various related plants, mostly of the genus Allium, that resemble the common onion closely enough to share its name.

    Several wild onions in the region are safe to eat.

    Besides the common bulb onion, many gardeners grow the tree onion, which forms little bulbs at the top of its stalks.

    Note

    Here the plural means kinds rather than bulbs. Onions in this sense covers domesticated Allium cepa and Allium fistulosum alongside wild Allium canadense and Allium validum. A qualifier usually does the sorting, as in wild onion or domesticated onion, and the botanical Latin pins down exactly which plant is meant when the common name is shared.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

  3. 3
    ouncenounslangcountable
    One ounce of an illegal drug, as weighed, bought, or sold in the drug trade.

    The dealer fronted him an onion on credit until payday.

    The dealer charged less for a whole onion than for four separate quarter ounces.

    Similarounce

Less common meanings

  1. 4
    nounobsolete
    A ball, in obsolete sporting slang, especially one pitched or hit in a ball game.
    Note

    Baseball once had a slang name for its own ball, and onion was it. Today's readers meet it only in older sports writing, where it sits among the game's old nicknames.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

    • Onion was slang for the ball in baseball. vbba.org
  2. 5
    nounobsolete
    A watch-seal, the small engraved fob hung from the chain of a pocket watch.
    Note

    The underworld knew this one. George William MacArthur Reynolds's The Mysteries of London, a serial begun in 1844, sets it in a rhyming alphabet of thieves' slang: "O was an Onion, possessed by a swell," between the nose and the pannie. The rounded seal hanging from a fashionable man's watch chain was an onion to the people eyeing it.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

    • The Mysteries of London was written by George William MacArthur Reynolds. gutenberg.org
    • The serial began publication in 1844. britishlibrary.cn
    • The novel contains the quoted line in a rhyming thieves' alphabet, between the Nose and Pannie lines. gutenberg.org
    • Onion means a watch seal in this fictional underworld setting. gutenberg.org
    • Seals could hang from a fashionable gentleman's watch chain. americanhistory.si.edu
  3. 6
    nounslang
    In internet slang, soy, used mainly within compound insults that invoke the 'soy boy' stereotype of supposedly weak or effeminate men.

Practice

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Origin

This word comes from Middle English onyoun, from Old French oignon, which came from Latin ūniō ("onion"). The same Latin word was also borrowed into Old English as yne or ynnelēac.

Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts