Other forms: kales
Kale is a dark curly leaf that refuses to go soft. Curly kale, massage the kale, a bag of kale.
It holds its texture through cooking, which is why it works in soups where spinach collapses. Frost improves it, since the plant makes sugars to protect itself from freezing. It is the closest of the cabbage family to the wild original.
1nounkaleA dark curly leaf that stays firm when cooked.
“She added a handful of chopped kale to the soup.”
kale is a vegetable.
Old English cawel comes from Latin caulis, a stem or cabbage. German Kohl is the same word.
Latin
caulis
Old English
cāl
enm-nor
cale
English, today
kale
From enm-nor cale, cal (Southern col), from Old English cāl, cāul, cāwel, from Latin caulis. Compare Icelandic kál (“cabbage”), German Kohl (“cabbage”). a doublet of caulis and cole and gobi.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA