Other forms: lettuces
Lettuce is the big soft green leaves at the bottom of every salad. A head of lettuce, iceberg lettuce, wash the lettuce.
It is about ninety-five per cent water, which is why it wilts so fast and adds so little to a meal. The name comes from the Latin for milk, because the stems bleed a white sap when cut, and that sap is mildly sedative.
1nounlettuceA leafy salad vegetable.
“Wash the lettuce and tear the leaves into a salad bowl.”
lettuce is a vegetable.
Old French laitue comes from Latin lactuca, from lac, milk, because the cut stems bleed a white sap.
Old English
lēactric
Latin
lactūca — lettuce
Old French
laitue
Middle English
letuse
English, today
lettuce
Built from
From Middle English letuse, of uncertain precise origin, probably from the plural form Old French laitue, derived from Latin lactūca (“lettuce”), from lac (“milk”), because of the milky fluid in its stalks. Replaced Old English lēactric. money Likely from the green color of US banknotes.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA