broccolo

From Italian broccolo, singular of broccoli.

broccolo (plural broccoli)

1. Rare form of broccoli.
   • a. 1890, “Epilogue—The Stove”, in Richard Burton, transl., Il Pentamerone; or, the Tale of Tales. , volume the second, London: Henry and Co., , translation of Il Pentamerone: Lo Cunto de li Cunti by Giambattista Basile, published 1893, page 341:

     Meanwhile he groweth like a wild nettle, / And shooteth up like unto a broccolo, / Papa sendeth him to school, / And expendeth upon him his coins of gold;

     • 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:

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

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

     “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.”

   • 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:

     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.

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

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

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

     “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.”

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

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

   • 1977 September 1, Marian H. Mundy, “Today’s Mundy: Under-Beamed and Over-Zucchinied”, in The Bernardsville News, volume 79, number 36, Bernardsville, N.J., section “Grow Power”, page 15, column 3:

     Technically, there is no such thing as one zucchini. We rarely refer to one spaghetto or one broccolo, because it’s not considered good form to serve just one. But there are a lot of broccoli - a whole bunch, in fact, - on a single stem, whereas there is only one zucchino.

   • 1991 December 29, L.M. Boyd, The Sunday Times, Munster, Ind., page I-1, column 1:

     If you only ate one branch of the broccoli on your plate, you ate a broccolo.

   • 2004 March 4, L.M. Boyd, Victoria Advocate, number 302, Victoria, Tex., page 5D, column 4:

     Some always suffer a bad hair day while others eat a broccolo

   • 2004 May 16, Bob Cunningham, “040516 1252Z”, in alt.usage.english (Usenet):

     > >> Or "I didn't use much to like broccoli." / > >I didn't use to lie broccoli much. / > It is best to be honest with broccoli. They see right through a lie. / You can fool one broccolo all of the time; you can fool all broccoli some of the time; but you can't fool all broccoli all of the time.

Diminutive of brocco (“shoot, sprout”) (which is also the origin of brocade),^[1] from Latin broccus (“projecting, pointed”),^[2] of Gaulish origin, related to Gaelic brog (“awl”).^[3] Cognate with Sicilian vròcculu.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbrɔk.ko.lo/
• Rhymes: -ɔkkolo
• Hyphenation: bròc‧co‧lo

broccolo m (plural broccoli)

1. broccoli
2. (figurative) stupid person

• → Catalan: bròquil
• → English: broccolo, broccoli