cauliflower

英文词源

cauliflower

cauliflower: [16] Cauliflower is literally ‘flowered cabbage’. English probably borrowed and adapted the word from Italian cavoli fiori, plural of cavolo fiore ‘cabbage flower’. Cavolo came from late Latin caulus, a variant of Latin caulis ‘cabbage’. This word originally meant ‘stem’, but the notion ultimately underlying it is ‘hollow stem’, for it can be traced back to an Indo-European base which also produced hole and hollow.

It was borrowed early on into the Germanic languages, and via this route has produced in English the now rare cole ‘cabbage, rape’[14] (more familiar in the Dutch borrowing coleslaw); the Scots version kale [13], from Old Norse kál, best known south of the border in the form curly kale; and via German kohlrabi [19], the last element of which is related to English rape the plant.
=> cole, coleslaw, hole, hollow, kale, kohlrabi

cauliflower (n.)

1590s, originally cole florye, from Italian cavoli fiori "flowered cabbage," plural of cavolo "cabbage" + fiore "flower" (from Latin flora; see flora).

First element is from Latin caulis "cabbage" (originally "stem, stalk") which was borrowed into Germanic and is the source of cole in cole-slaw and of Scottish kale. The front end of the word was re-Latinized from 18c.; the back end was influenced by flower (n.). The boxer's cauliflower ear is from 1907.