cauliflower

Etymology

The earliest English forms, cole florye and colieflorie,^[2][3][4][5] are, according to most dictionaries, borrowed from Italian cavoli fiori (“flowered cabbages”), the plural of cavolfiore,^{[2][6][7][8][4]} with the first element made to match cole.^[3][4][5] The OED and the Shorter Oxford also allow French chou fleuri or chou flori, probably itself from Italian, or New Latin cauliflōra, all meaning "flowered cabbage";^[3][9][5] the American Heritage Dictionary and Barnhart prefer the New Latin word.^[10][11] cavolo (“cabbage”) is from Late Latin caulus, a variant of Latin caulis (“stem, stalk; cabbage”), and fiore (“flower”) is from flōs (“flower”).^[6][7][2] The second element was reshaped after flower in the 17th century, and the first was re-Latinized after caulis from the 18th.^[5][2][3] The OED compares German Blumenkohl, Dutch bloemkool and Spanish coliflor, and modern French chou-fleur.^[3] Caulis was borrowed early into Germanic and is the source of cole, kale and the first part of coleslaw;^[2][8] Ayto traces it to an Indo-European base that also gave hole and hollow.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The cabbage variety with a white edible flower head: 1597, in Gerard's Herball.^[3][11][6] Etymonline dates it to the 1590s.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the vegetable the name passed to things of the same shape: pottery made like a cauliflower (1757), then anything shaped like one (1803),^[3][9] such as the froth on ale in Scotland or a knot on a candle wick in Lincolnshire.^[12] In 18th-century slang a cauliflower was a large white wig of the kind worn by senior clergy (Grose, 1785), and in 1774 "the very colliflower of the mode" meant the height of fashion.^[13] A cauliflower ear, an ear deformed by repeated blows in boxing, is dated 1907 by Etymonline;^[2] Tréguer finds it in 1887, in a boxing report in The Boston Daily Globe.^[14] The verb, to disfigure an ear in this way, is recorded from 1947.^[3][6]

Timeline

• 1597 – the vegetable.^[3][11]
• 1757 – pottery in the shape of a cauliflower.^[3]
• 1785 – a large white wig, in slang.^[13]
• 1803 – something shaped like a cauliflower.^[3]
• 1887 – cauliflower ear.^[14]
• 1947 – verb, to disfigure an ear by blows.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A variety of cabbage grown for its large, dense white head of undeveloped flowers.^{[7][6][15][3]}
2. The head of this plant, eaten as a vegetable: cauliflower with cheese sauce.^[7][9]
3. Something shaped like a cauliflower head.^[3][9]

Verb

1. To disfigure an ear by repeated blows, as in boxing.^[6][3]

Word family

• cauliflower fungus
• cauliflower ear

Related words

• cole
• kale
• coleslaw
• kohlrabi
• flower

Usage notes

Hendrickson notes that Mark Twain called the cauliflower "cabbage with a college education".^[16] In parts of the United States it is pronounced as if spelt colleyflower or cullyflower.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ a b Tréguer, Pascal, Word Histories, wordhistories.net, p. "cauliflower ear", 15 March 2024
15. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
16. ^ Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
17. ^ Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press