Garlic is the strong-smelling white bulb that flavours half of all cooking. A clove of garlic, crush the garlic, garlic bread.
The smell only appears when a clove is cut or crushed, because the two chemicals that make it are kept apart in the intact bulb. Crushing gives more flavour than slicing for that reason. It leaves the body through the lungs, so brushing your teeth does not help. Note that the word means spear-leek.
1noungarlicA strong-smelling bulb used to flavour food.
“Crush two cloves of garlic and fry them gently in oil.”
garlic is a flavouring.
Old English garleac is gar, a spear, plus leac, a leek — named for the shape of the leaves.
Old English
gārlēac — garlic
Middle English
garlek
English, today
garlic
Built from
Middle English garlek, garlik, from Old English gārlēac (“garlic”) literally “spear-leek”, from gār "spear"; in reference to its sharp, tapering leaves + lēac (“leek”). Cognate with Scots garlic (“garlic”), Faroese geirleykur (“garlic”), Icelandic geirlaukur (“garlic”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA