Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An eastern Asian plant (Sium sisarum) having a cluster of tuberous, sweetish, edible roots.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A species of waterparsnip, Sium Sisarum, generally said to be of Chinese origin, long cultivated in Europe for its esculent root. It is a plant a foot high with pinnate leaves, a hardy perennial, but grown as an annual. The root is composed of small fleshy tubers, of the size of the little finger, united at the crown. It somewhat resembles parsnip in flavor, and is eaten boiled served with butter, or half-boiled and then fried, Skirret, however, has now nearly fallen into disuse.
Wiktionary
- n. An umbelliferous plant (Sium or Pimpinella sisarum), cultivated for its sweet edible tuberous roots.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) An umbelliferous plant (Sium Sisarum syn. Pimpinella Sisarum). It is a native of Asia, but has been long cultivated in Europe for its edible clustered tuberous roots, which are very sweet.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an Asiatic herb cultivated in Europe for its sweet edible tuberous root
Etymologies
- A corrupted form equivalent to sugarwort. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English skirwhit, alteration (influenced by skir, pure, bright and white, white) of Old French eschervi, probably from Arabic karawyā, caraway, from Greek karō. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“On the other hand, there was a kind of parsnip called skirret that did die out entirely because people stopped cultivating it, and a type of small onion, and a certain breed of English peas—”
“Garnish it with orange peel boil'd in strong broth, and some French beans boil'd, and put in thick butter, or some skirret, cardones, artichocks, slic't lemon, mace, or orange.”
“It was made of barley; certain herbs, such as lupine and skirret, were used as substitutes for hops.”
“Vegetables count cole, collard, kale, all ` cabbage 'and preserved in kailyard ` cabbage garden,' symbolic of Scotland's literature since 1895 as in "the kailyard school"; rutabaga ` turnip, 'literally, ` root-bag'; and skirret ` parsnip, 'literally, ` sheer-white.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘skirret’.
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roots of beauty
aesthetics, tuberose, gladiolus, actaeon, scammony, symmetry, philocaly, elegant, callisteia, kalology, resplendence, beauteousness and 23 more...
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root tips and other ends
stolon, circinate, calyptrogen, meristem, verticil, fusiform, telomere, skirret, relbun, turpeth, galangal, vetiver and 54 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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On The Menu
diver scallop, grilled porcini, lavender-fennel p..., roasted cranberri..., carmelized walnut..., cardamom-molasses..., bittersweet choco..., rosemary flatbread, eggplant veloute, fennel gratin, rollmops, jugged hare and 122 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for skirret.
knitandpurl "Familiar smells drifted in the air: fennel, skirrets and alexanders, then wild garlic, radishes and broom."
John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk, p 85 Nov 10, 2012