chard

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French carde (“cardoon; edible midrib of a cardoon or artichoke”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]} which Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the OED take from Old Occitan cardo (“thistle, cardoon”),^[2][4] from Latin carduus (“thistle, artichoke”).^[2][3][4][9] The initial consonant is explained as an alteration under the influence of French chardon (“thistle”),^{[4][7][5][6][8][10]} and the OED sees the same remodelling in English after either that word or cardoon.^[2] Dictionary.com derives the English word directly from chardon.^[11] Klein notes an earlier English form card.^[9] The OED regards the Latin as of unknown origin;^[2] Etymonline suggests Proto-Indo-European *kars- (“to scrape, scratch”),^[3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged compares Middle Low German harst (“rake”) and Latin carrō (“to card”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The thick midrib of a beet leaf or an artichoke leaf, cooked as a vegetable: 1653, in I. D. G.'s translation of La Varenne's French Cook.^[2] Etymonline likewise has the 1650s, for the blanched leaf of the artichoke,^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged 1658,^[4] and Dictionary.com 1650–60.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Its French source had itself narrowed: carde meant the cardoon in the early 16th century, its edible midrib by the end of that century, and the midrib of a beet leaf in the later 17th.^[2] By 1664, in Evelyn's Kalendarium Hortense, chard could name a beet grown for such ribs.^[2] Johnson (1755), drawing on Chambers and Mortimer, still knew two kinds, artichokes wrapped in straw so that the leaves grew white and lost their bitterness, and transplanted white beet with a thick central shoot.^[12] Later use moved from the rib to the whole leaf,^[2] and the artichoke sense has become rare.^[2] Modern dictionaries define the word as a leafy beet, also called Swiss chard or seakale beet.^[10][4][7]

Timeline

• 1653 – the thick midrib of a beet or artichoke leaf, as a vegetable.^[2]
• 1664 – a variety of beet grown for these ribs, or later for its leaves.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A variety of beet with large leaves and thick, succulent stalks, cooked as a vegetable; Swiss chard.^{[10][4][7][2]}
2. (now somewhat rare) The thick midrib of a beet leaf, used as a vegetable.^[2][12]
3. (now rare) The midrib or blanched shoot of an artichoke, used as a vegetable.^[2][5][12]

Word family

• Swiss chard

Related words

• cardoon
• carduus

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster Unabridged also enters chard, pronounced with an initial sh, as an informal word for chardonnay, from 1977.^[4] The OED has an obsolete chard, recorded from about 1560 to 1662, for a map or chart, an alteration of chart after card.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.