Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Chervil
/ˈtʃɜːrvɪl/noun
A delicate herb with lacy leaves and a faint aniseed note, one of the four in French fines herbes.
The Greek roots
χαίρω
chaírō
to rejoice, take pleasure
φύλλον
phýllon
leaf
Literally: “leaf of rejoicing”
The story of the word
χαιρέφυλλον, the leaf that gladdens. It reached English before the Normans did, as Old English cerfille borrowed from Latin caerefolium, which makes it one of the oldest Greek words in the language and one of the least Greek-looking. Heat destroys it, so cooks add it at the end or not at all. The same φύλλον is inside chlorophyll and the pastry sheets sold as phyllo.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old English → English
- First recorded
- Old English
Same family
chlorophyllphyllophyllotaxis
In a sentence
Chervil goes in after the pan comes off the heat.
It bolts the moment the weather turns, so we sow chervil every three weeks.