beet

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bete,^[2][3] inherited from Old English bēte,^[4][5][6][7] borrowed from Latin bēta (“beet”).^{[4][5][6][3][8]} The Latin name was taken early into the West Germanic languages, which is why Old Frisian bete, Old High German bieza, Middle High German bieze, Middle Low German bēte and Middle Dutch bēte are cognates, as are Dutch beet and German Bete.^{[4][5][6][9][10]} Etymonline, Klein, Hoad and the Oxford dictionaries say that the Latin word is perhaps Celtic in origin,^{[5][11][8][9][10]} but Barnhart thinks this unlikely, since the Irish word is borrowed from Latin and the Welsh from Middle English, and no Gaulish source is known.^[6] Partridge relates it to blitum, the name of similar plants, which renders Ancient Greek βλίτον (blíton).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The beet plant, in the Old English medical texts known as the Leechdoms, from about 1000: Bosworth–Toller quotes a recipe for a drink of beet and another for bathing with beet leaves.^[4][7][6]

Semantic evolution

The word was common in Old English, but the OED and Etymonline find no further record of it until about 1400.^[4][5] The Middle English Dictionary has it in a copy of an Old English herbal made around 1200 and in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus (before 1398), which distinguishes black and white beet.^[2] Hoad thinks its revival in late Middle English was probably due to Low German.^[8] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as the name of a plant, with a botanical description.^[13] The compound beetroot is recorded from 1597,^[4] and sugar beet, a variety grown for its sugar, from 1831.^[4] In American English beet also means the root eaten as a vegetable, which British English calls beetroot,^[14][15] and it is then usually used in the plural.^[5][15]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – Old English bēte, the beet plant.^[4][6][7]
• c. 1200 – engle bete in a copy of an Old English herbal.^[2]
• before 1398 – black and white beet, in Trevisa.^[2]
• 1597 – beetroot, the root of the beet.^[4]
• 1831 – sugar beet.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A biennial plant, Beta vulgaris, grown for its thick edible root and its leaves; also any plant of the genus Beta.^[3][15][14]
2. (chiefly US) The swollen root of this plant, usually dark red, eaten as a vegetable; beetroot: She roasted the beets with garlic.^[3][14][15]
3. The sugar beet.^[3][15]
4. The leaves of some varieties, cooked and eaten as greens.^[14][15]

Word family

• beetlike
• beetroot
• beet sugar
• beet leafhopper
• leaf beet
• sugar beet

Related words

• beat

Usage notes

Scottish and northern English dialect also has a verb beet, to mend or to feed a fire, inherited from Old English bētan (“to make good, amend”) and related to boot in the sense "profit, remedy"; it went out of literary English before 1500.^{[4][15][9][16]}

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)