Everyday LifeGreek → English
Celery
/ˈsɛləri/noun
A pale ribbed stalk vegetable of the parsley family.
The Greek roots
σέλινον
sélinon
celery, parsley
Literally: “the selinon herb”
Follow a root:σέλινον2 words
The story of the word
σέλινον was woven into the victors' crowns at the Isthmian and Nemean games, though the plant meant is wild celery, bitter and thin, not the fat blanched stalks of a greengrocer. The Sicilian city of Selinus stamped a celery leaf on its coins as a pun on its own name. English took the word from Italian through French in the seventeenth century, once Italian gardeners had bred the bitterness out of it.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Italian → French → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
parsleyceleriac
In a sentence
Chop the celery finely or the children will pick it out.