cabbage

cabbage · noun, verb¹

1. Old Frenchcaboce
2. Anglo-Normancaboche
3. Middle Englishcaboche
4. English todaycabbage

From Middle English caboche, cabage (“cabbage”; “a certain fish”), a borrowing from Anglo-Norman caboche (“head”), a northern variant of caboce, of uncertain origin. Some authorities derive it from Latin caput (“head”), others from ca- (said to be an expressive prefix) + boce (“hump; bump”) (whence English boss).

cabbage · noun, verb²

1. Dutch · borrowed from*kabbassen
2. English todaycabbage

Unclear. Perhaps from Dutch *kabbassen, from Old French cabasser (“put into a basket”), from cabas. Alternatively, perhaps from an earlier word *carbage (“shred”), a potential variant of *garbage (“wheat straw”).

Words from the same roots