# cabbage
## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈkæbɪd͡ʒ/
* Audio (UK):(file)
* Audio (US):(file)
* Homophones: CABG (one pronunciation)
* Hyphenation: cab‧bage
* Rhymes: -æbɪdʒ

### Etymology 1

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).

#### Noun

cabbage (countable and uncountable, plural cabbages)
* An edible plant (Brassica oleracea var. capitata) having a head of green leaves.
** (by extension) Any of various cultivars of the species Brassica oleracea.
* (uncountable, vegetable) The leaves of this plant eaten as a vegetable.
    Cabbage is good for you.
* (countable, offensive) A person with severely reduced mental capacities due to brain damage.
    After the car crash, he became a cabbage.
* Used as a term of endearment.
** 2009, Tom Stoppard, Helen Rappaport, The Cherry Orchard, translation of Вишнëвый сад ("Vishniovy sad") by Anton Chekhov, published 1904, page 31:If you deceive me, Yasha, I don't know if my nerves could stand it. YASHA (kissing her) My little cabbage! Of course, a girl must know her place.
* (uncountable, slang) Money.
* (uncountable, slang) Marijuana leaf, the part that is not smoked but from which cannabutter can be extracted.
* A terminal bud of certain palm trees, used for food.
* A cabbage palmetto (Sabal palmetto), a palm of the southeastern US coasts and nearby islands.
* (slang, African-American Vernacular) A human head.

##### Synonyms

* (plant): cabbage plant, cole
* (leaves of this plant eaten as a vegetable): cole, greens
* (person with severely reduced mental capacities due to brain damage): vegetable

##### Derived terms

* bacon and cabbage
* beach cabbage
* cabbage aphid
* cabbageball
* cabbage-bark
* cabbage butterfly
* cabbage fly
* cabbage gum
* cabbagehead, cabbage head, cabbage-head
* cabbageless
* cabbage lettuce
* cabbagelike
* cabbage looper
* cabbage moth
* cabbage on a stick
* cabbage palm
* cabbage patch
* cabbage roll
* cabbage root fly
* cabbage rose
* cabbage salad
* Cabbagetown
* cabbage white
* cabbagewood
* cabbage worm
* cabbagy
* celery cabbage
* cone cabbage
* drumhead cabbage
* green mustard cabbage
* harlequin cabbage bug
* hispi cabbage
* how the cow ate the cabbage
* I don't boil my cabbage twice
* I don't chew my cabbage twice
* imported cabbage worm
* jazz cabbage
* kaffir cabbage
* Kerguelen cabbage
* Liberty cabbage, liberty cabbage
* Lundy cabbage
* Milan cabbage
* mountain cabbage
* napa cabbage
* Nile cabbage
* not as green as one is cabbage-looking
* palm cabbage
* pointed cabbage
* poor man's cabbage
* Savoy cabbage
* sea cabbage
* sea otter's cabbage
* skunk cabbage
* St Patrick's cabbage
* sugarloaf cabbage
* sweetheart cabbage
* thousand-headed cabbage
* turnip-cabbage
* wallflower cabbage
* warrigal cabbage
* water cabbage
* white cabbage
* wild cabbage

##### Descendants

* Sranan Tongo: kabisi
* → Abenaki: kabij
* → Swahili: kabichi
* → Yoruba: kábéèjì

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

#### Verb

cabbage (third-person singular simple present cabbages, present participle cabbaging, simple past and past participle cabbaged)
* (intransitive) To form a head like that of the cabbage.
    to make lettuce cabbage
* (intransitive, slang) To do nothing; to idle; veg out.
** 2006, Steve Mckevitt, Why the World Is Full of Useless Things, page 38:How effective the project was is a moot point, because there were never any studies carried out to see whether children benefited from cabbaging in front of the TV rather than interacting with a teacher.
* (slang, African-American Vernacular) To be killed or murdered, such as by being shot in the head.

#### See also

* brassica
* broccoflower
* broccoli
* broccolini
* Brussels sprouts
* cabbage tree
* carbage
* cauliflower
* Chinese cabbage
* Chinese broccoli, Chinese kale
* collard greens
* kale
* kohlrabi
* sauerkraut
* red cabbage

### Etymology 2

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”).

#### Noun

cabbage (uncountable)
* (slang) Scraps of cloth which are left after a garment has been cut out, which tailors traditionally kept.

#### Verb

cabbage (third-person singular simple present cabbages, present participle cabbaging, simple past and past participle cabbaged)
* (transitive) To embezzle or purloin; to pilfer, to steal.
** 1733, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], Alexander Pope, compiler, “Law is a Bottomless Pit. Or, The History of John Bull. […]. [The First Part.] Chapter X. Of John Bull’s Second Wife, and the Good Advice that She Gave Him.”, in Miscellanies, 2nd edition, volume II, London: […] Benjamin Motte, […], →OCLC, page 30:[Y]our Butler purloins your Liquor, and your Brevver ſells your Hogvvaſh; […] your Taylor, inſtead of Shreds, cabages vvhole Yards of Cloth; […]
** 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:We toted in the wood and got the fire going nice and comfortable. Lord James still set in one of the chairs and Applegate had cabbaged the other and was hugging the stove.

### References

* 1 2 3 “cabbage”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
* 1 2 “cabbage”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
* ↑ “caboche, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
* ↑ Etymology and history of “caboche”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
* ↑ William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “cabbage”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.