onion
UK /ˈʌnjən/ · US /ˈʌnj(ə)n/ noun
Forms onions onyon
- noun A monocotyledonous plant (Allium cepa), allied to garlic, used as vegetable and spice.
- noun The bulb of such a plant. “My eyes are stinging from the chopped onions.”
- noun Any of various plants, mostly of the genus Allium, that are more or less similar to Allium cepa. “Many onions are delicious; domesticated onions such as Allium cepa and Allium fistulosum are especially good, but even wild onions such as Allium canadense and Allium validum are nice in small doses.”
- noun (slang) Of a drug, an ounce.
- noun (obsolete baseball slang) A ball.
- noun (obsolete, slang) A watch-seal.
- noun (4chan slang, slang) Soy, particularly when used in compound words related to the soy boy stereotype.
- noun (Bermuda, slang) An inhabitant of Bermuda; a Bermudian.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English onyoun, oynoun, from Old French oignon, from Latin ūniōnem, accusative of ūniō (“onion”), which had also been borrowed into Old English as yne, ynnelēac (“onion”) (> Middle English hynne-leac, henne-leac). Displaced the inherited term ramsons.
* (soy): Stems from a 4chan word filter which changes the word soy to onions. The word filter was implemented in relation to the "alpha onion eater" meme, which is depicted as the direct opposite of the soy boy.
In reference to the large quantities of onions grown on Bermuda.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A liliaceous plant of the genus Allium (A.cepa), having a strong-flavored bulb and long hollow leaves; also, its bulbous root, much used as an article of food. The name is often extended to other species of the genus. Onion fish (Zoöl.), the grenadier.
Etymology [F. ognon, fr. L. unio oneness, unity, a single large pearl, an onion. See One, Union.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “onion”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details