colewort arch.
(ˈkəʊlwɜːt)
Also 4–5 cool-, 6–7 col-.
[f. cole n.1 + wort plant.]
1. Originally, a general name for any plant of the cabbage kind, genus Brassica (of which the varieties were formerly less distinct than now).
| c 1380 Wyclif Serm. Sel. Wks. I. 100 Growynge of cool⁓wortis and oþer wedis. 1491 Caxton Vitas Patr. (W. de W. 1495) i. cxxv. 143 a/1 Wyth the leues of the coole wortes that men cast out of my kechin. 1578 Lyte Dodoens iv. vi. 551 There be divers sortes of Colewurtes, not muche lyke one another. 1591 Spenser Muiopotmos 199 Fat Col⁓worts, and comforting Perseline. 1626 Bacon Sylva §518 We see that Water-mint turneth into field-mint and the Colewort into Rape by neglect. 1661 Pepys Diary 10 Mar., A poor Lenten dinner of colworts and bacon. 1830 Scott Demonol. vii. 216 Their food was..broth made of coleworts and bacon. 1859 Tennyson Guinevere 32 As the gardener's hand Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar. |
b. cabbage-colewort: a colewort that hearts or forms a cabbage.
| 1616 Surfl. & Markh. Countr. Farm 165 Cabage-colewort, which are called white or apple Coleworts. |
2. In later times, applied especially to those varieties that do not heart, e.g. kale or greens, or to cabbage-plants before they heart.
| 1683 Tryon Way to Health 209 Of Colworts, Cabbage and Colly-flowers. Colworts are the best of the three. 1799 J. Robertson Agric. Perth 281 Cabbages and coleworts are of this class. 1832 Veg. Subst. Food 259 There the cabbage and..colewort are in equal favour. 1861 Delamer Kitch. Gard. 56 Coleworts (or cabbage-plants half-grown, before they have formed their hearts). |
b. sea colewort: Sea-kale, Crambe maritima.
| 1725 Bradley Fam. Dict., Sea Colewort, a Plant that differs from other Coles. 1794 Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xxiii. 324 Sea-Colewort has a globose silique. |
3. Applied to the edible terminal bud of a palm-tree; = cabbage 3.
| 1796 H. Hunter tr. St. Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) III. 91 The colewort which is inclosed in the leaves that grow on the top of this tree is very good to eat. |
† 4. In the proverbial phr. coleworts twice sodden, applied to a statement, argument, etc. that has been presented before; ‘stale news’. Obs.
So mod. dial. ‘I don't boil my cabbages twice.’ Cf. also Sc. ‘cauld kale het again.’
| c 1568 Fulke Answ. Chr. Protestant (1577) 84 These colewortes haue bene sodden twise or thryse already. 1580 Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 391 Which I must omitte, least I set before you Colewortes twise sodden. 1610 Bp. Hall Apol. agst. Brownists 98 You want variety, when you send in these twise-sodde Coleworts. 1644 Bulwer Chiron. 136 It being better sometimes to use a licentious and unwarrantable motion, then alwayes to obtrude the same Coleworts. |
5. attrib., as cole-wort worm.
| 1552 Huloet s.v. Canker worme, Some do call them the deuyls goldrynge, & some the colewort worme. 1880 Boy's Own Bk. 265 Cabbage-worm..colewort-worm, or grub. |