Fennel is a plant with feathery leaves and an aniseed flavour. Fennel seeds, roast fennel, a bulb of fennel.
Three parts get used and they are not the same thing: the swollen bulb as a vegetable, the feathery fronds as a herb, and the seeds as a spice. Fennel seeds are chewed after a meal in India, and the plant is the flavour behind absinthe's relatives.
1nounfennelA plant with feathery leaves and an aniseed flavour.
“He sliced some fennel into the salad, and it gave it a light liquorice taste.”
fennel is a plant.
Old English finugl comes from Latin faeniculum, a little hay, from faenum, hay, for the smell of the dried plant.
Latin
fēnuculum
Vulgar Latin
*fēnuclum
Proto-West Germanic
*fenukl
Old English
finugl
Middle English
fenel
English, today
fennel
Built from
From the Middle English fenel, from the late Old English finugl, finule (weak feminine forms); fenol, finul (masculine forms), from Proto-West Germanic fenukl, from the Vulgar Latin fēnuclum, fēnoclum, from Latin fēnuculum, from the Classical Latin faeniculum, a diminutive form of faenum (“hay”); compare the Italian finocchio, the Occitan fenolh, the French fenouil, and the Spanish hinojo. a doublet of finocchio and finook.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA