WikiWord

English

leek

/liːk/ · noun

Meaning

  1. A vegetable of variety Allium ampeloprasum, having edible leaves and an onion-like bulb but with a milder flavour than the onion.
  2. Any of several species of Allium, broadly resembling the domesticated plant in appearance in the wild.
  3. A town and civil parish with a town council in Staffordshire Moorlands district, Staffordshire, England (OS grid ref SJ9856).
  4. A village and former municipality in Groningen province, Netherlands.
  5. A surname.

Etymology / origin

From Middle English leke, leek, lek, from Old English lēac (“a garden herb, leek, onion, garlic”), from Proto-West Germanic *lauk, from Proto-Germanic *lauką, *laukaz (“leek, onion”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewg- (“to bend”). Cognate with Dutch look (“garlic, leek”), German Low German Look (“leek”), German Lauch (“leek, allium”), Danish løg (“onion”), Norwegian Bokmål løk (“onion”), Norwegian Nynorsk lauk (“onion”), Swedish lök (“onion”), Icelandic laukur (“onion, leek, garlic”). See garlic.

Related words

Descendant words

Sources

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