leek

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lek,^[2][3][1] inherited from Old English lēac (“leek, onion, garlic”), Mercian lǣc or lēc,^[4][5][2][6] from Proto-Germanic *laukaz.^[1][7][8][4] It is cognate with Old Saxon lōk (“leek”), Middle Dutch looc and Dutch look, Old High German louh and German Lauch, and Old Norse laukr (“leek, garlic”), with Swedish lök and Danish løg, onion.^{[4][5][9][10]} Finnish laukka and Russian лук (luk, “onion”) are said to be borrowings from Germanic.^[5][9][10] The word is the last element of garlic, Old English gārlēc.^[5][4][11] The OED and Orel find no certain relatives outside Germanic.^[9][8][12] Kroonen notes the common view that it comes from Proto-Germanic *lūkaną (“to close”), from the leaves or scales that enclose the stem,^[7] while Klein and Barnhart relate it to lock, a tuft of hair, from a root meaning to bend,^[10][4] and Torp and Falk compared Ancient Greek λύγος (lúgos, “willow-like tree”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English lēac was used in a wider sense, of an alliaceous plant or a garden herb in general, as in lēac-tūn, kitchen garden.^[6][13] Barnhart dates the Mercian form to about 700,^[4] and the OED's first record of the plant name is in an early Old English book of remedies.^[9] In glosses it rendered both Latin porrum, leek, and cepa, onion.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Middle English could still use lek of garlic and other sharp-tasting herbs,^[2] and Chaucer's General Prologue has a man who loved "garlek, oynons, and eek lekes".^[2] From about 1330 the leek was a byword for something of little value: not worth a leek, to care a leek.^[9][2][14] As the national emblem of the Welsh it gave the phrase to eat the leek, to swallow an insult under compulsion, from Fluellen forcing Pistol to eat one in Shakespeare's Henry V (1600).^[9][13][14] In the 18th century leek was a cant name for a Welshman.^[9] From the 16th century the name was extended to other species of Allium and to bulbous plants of other genera.^[9][14] In the 19th century green leek named certain green parrots.^[14] Green's Dictionary of Slang records leek for the penis in the 17th and 19th centuries.^[15] In English dialect, leek pasties were eaten at Shrovetide.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 700 – Mercian lǣc, a leek or other alliaceous plant.^[4]
• c. 1330 – a thing of little value (obsolete by 1800).^[9]
• 1362 – in proverbial phrases, in Langland's Piers Plowman.^[9]
• 1551 – other bulbous plants, as corn-leek.^[9]
• 1577 – other species of Allium.^[9]
• 1600 – to eat the leek, in Shakespeare's Henry V.^[9]
• 1725 – cant name for a Welshman (obsolete).^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A plant of the onion family, Allium porrum, with a long cylindrical white stalk of rolled leaves and flat green leaves, eaten as a vegetable.^[17][18][9]
2. Any of several related plants, such as the wild leek.^[18][9]
3. A leek, or a picture of one, as the national emblem of Wales.^[18][9][14]
4. to eat the leek: to accept a humiliation because one is forced to.^[9][14]
5. (obsolete, 1330–1800) A thing of little value, as in not worth a leek.^[9][14][2]

Word family

• leek-green
• wild leek

Related words

• garlic
• onion
• lock
• houseleek

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
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)
17. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
18. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins