broccolo

plural broccoli

1. rareRare form of broccoli.

   The idea of enticing women aboard with the promise of a banana burgeoned like a blooming broccolo.

   1974 March 8, Dick Nolan, “Bridge goes bananas”, in San Francisco Examiner, number 232, San Francisco, Calif., page 37, column 5

   5 more examples

   Like a wild weed meanwhile that infant grows, / and like a broccolo he’s soon in bloom: / he’s sent to school,[…]

   a. 2005, The Bread and the Rose: A Trilingual Anthology of Neapolitan Poetry from the 16th Century to the Present, translation of Il Pentamerone: Lo Cunto de li Cunti by Giambattista Basile, →ISBN, page 42

   “I believe I mustn’t start tealing yet awhile,” said the old man, regretfully plunging his long Cornish spade into the baked earth, from which insufficient stability the instrument fell with a thump on to the path. […] “I feel frightened, Mr. Champion,” said Jenny suddenly. […] “Supposing it wasn’t a person at all?” said Jenny desperately. “You know, like us?” / The old man considered for a moment this morbid fancy. / “That’s a wisht old thought,” he said at last, “and I don’t see no call for it at all. When I do teal a lily root, I don’t expect to see a broccolo come bursting up and annoying me.”

   1912 March, Compton Mackenzie, “Harvest Home”, in Carnival, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton and Company, pages 367–368

   CELERY. (Apium graveolens.) / A cross between a Broccolo and a Cabbage, but not now better for attention.[…]CHOU DE BURGHLEY. / A cross between a Broccolo and a Cabbage, but not now grown to any extent.

   1913, Trevor Monmouth, Vegetable Culture for Amateurs: Alphabetically Arranged with a Practical Calendar of Operations for the Year, London: L. Upcott Gill, pages 25, 28

   (Open Classes.) / Judge: Mr L. Page. /[…]Two broccoli. One entry—G. H. Bayles 1.[…] / One broccolo. One entry—Ivan Boyes 1.

   1927 May 12, The Otago Daily Times, “Vegetables”, page 7, column 3

   “Filler” item in a daily newspaper: “The singular of broccoli is broccolo.” / In other words: / Customer: “I’ll have a dish of broccoli, please.” / Waiter: “I’m veddy soddy, sir, but we don’t have a single broccolo in the place today.” / And that ends our little lesson on the etiquette of grammar for today. You may go now, children—and never forget, we always eat every last broccolo on our plate.”

   1946 January 24, The Pilot-Tribune, volume 76, number 39, Blair, Neb., page 2, column 2