FreeScrabbleDictionary

onion

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
5
Words With Friends
7
Letters
5
Pronunciation
/ˈʌn.jən/
See all 10 pronunciations
/ˈʌn.jən/ · /ˈʌn.jɪn/ · /ˈʌŋ.jɪn/ · /ˈɐn.jən/ · /ˈɐŋ.jən/ · /ˈan.jən/ · /ˈaŋ.jən/ · /ˈɔnɪjən/ · /ˈɪŋ.ən/ · /ˈɪn.jən/

Definition of onion

9 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. A monocotyledonous plant (Allium cepa), allied to garlic, used as vegetable and spice.
    “Some of the weeds that cause an undesirable flavor in milk are: onion, tarweed, scaleweed, garlic, mustard, pepper grass.”
    “To get started, how about creating an edible window box? Sowed in the spring, salad seeds like radish, lettuce and spring onion will germinate so quickly that you'll be harvesting a crop in a month or two.”
See all 9 definitions

noun

  1. A monocotyledonous plant (Allium cepa), allied to garlic, used as vegetable and spice.
    “Some of the weeds that cause an undesirable flavor in milk are: onion, tarweed, scaleweed, garlic, mustard, pepper grass.”
    “To get started, how about creating an edible window box? Sowed in the spring, salad seeds like radish, lettuce and spring onion will germinate so quickly that you'll be harvesting a crop in a month or two.”
  2. The bulb of such a plant.
    “My eyes are stinging from the chopped onions.”
    “Among the ancient Greeks, onions are most frequently mentioned as a stimulus to sexual desire.”
    “dorrẹ̅, dōrī adj. & n. […] cook. glazed with a yellow substance; pome(s ~, sopes ~. […] 1381 Pegge Cook. Recipes p. 114: For to make Soupys dorry. Nym onyons […] Nym wyn […] toste wyte bred and do yt in dischis, and god Almande mylk.”
    “Goulash, a local favorite, was brought up-to-date with seared grass-fed rib-eye, stewed cippolini onions and roasted cherry tomatoes.”
  3. 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.”
  4. (slang)Of a drug, an ounce.
  5. (obsolete, slang)A ball.
  6. (obsolete, slang)A watch-seal.
    “[…] M was a Magsman, frequenting Pall-Mall; / N was a Nose that turned chirp on his pal; / O was an Onion, possessed by a swell; / P was a Pannie, done niblike and well. […]”
  7. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of Onion (“an inhabitant of Bermuda; a Bermudian”).
  8. (slang)Soy, particularly when used in compound words related to the soy boy stereotype.
  9. (slang)An inhabitant of Bermuda; a Bermudian.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

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…

See full 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). Also displaced Middle English knelek (literally “knee-leek”) and 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.

Words you can make from onion

10 playable · top: NONI (4 pts)

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4-letter words

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3-letter words

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2-letter words

4 words

Hooks

4 extensions · 2 front · 2 back

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