The story
Borrowed from Cantonese 白菜 (baak⁶ coi³, “white vegetable”). Doublet of pechay.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
bok choy
Today it means: Chinese cabbage, Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis, an East Asian leafy vegetable related to the Western cabbage. Full definition →