Other forms: parsnips
A parsnip is a pale sweet root roasted in winter. Roast parsnips, honey-glazed parsnip, parsnip soup.
It sweetens after a frost, since cold makes the plant convert starch to sugar, which is why it is a winter vegetable rather than an autumn one. Before sugar was cheap it was used as a sweetener in its own right.
1nounparsnipA pale sweet root roasted in winter.
“We had roast beef with roast potatoes and parsnips for Sunday lunch.”
parsnip is a vegetable.
Old French pasnaie comes from Latin pastinaca, reshaped in English under the influence of the word for turnip.
Latin
pastināca — parsnip, carrot
Old French
pasnaie
Middle English
passenep
English, today
parsnip
Built from
From 16th-century parsnepe, from Middle English passenep, a modification of Old French pasnaie by influence of Middle English nepe (“turnip”), from Latin pastināca (“parsnip, carrot”), from pastinum (“two-pronged fork”) as in pastinō (“to dig up the ground”).. The irregular intrusive r may be due to influence from parsley.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA