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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

turnip.

The white root of a yellow-flowered plant, Brassica rapa, grown as a vegetable and as fodder for cattle.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈtɜːnɪp/Australia, Received-Pronunciation/ˈtəːnɪp/British, Southern, Standard/ˈtɝ.nɪp/US/ˈtɝ.nəp/US
  1. The white root of a yellow-flowered plant, Brassica rapa, grown as a vegetable and as fodder for cattle.

  2. The yellow root of a related plant, the swede or Brassica napus.

    Atlantic-Canada · Cornwall · Ireland · Northern-England · Scotland
  3. The white root of Raphanus sativus var. longipinnatus, also known as a daikon.

    Hong-Kong
  4. The root of the yam bean, Pachyrhizus erosus; jicama.

    Malaysia · Singapore · broadly
  5. Clipping of turnip watch

    abbreviation · alt-of · clipping · dated
  6. A fool or simpleton.

    slang
Where this word comes from

From Middle English turnepe, probably from turn + Middle English nepe, from Old English nǣp, from Latin nāpus. The component turn may be due to the round shape of the plant as though turned on a lathe, or because it must be turned and twisted to be harvested. Cognate to neep. See also parsnip.

verb/ˈtɜːnɪp/Australia, Received-Pronunciation/ˈtəːnɪp/British, Southern, Standard/ˈtɝ.nɪp/US/ˈtɝ.nəp/US
  1. To plant with turnips.

    transitive
  2. To feed or graze (livestock) on turnips.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English turnepe, probably from turn + Middle English nepe, from Old English nǣp, from Latin nāpus. The component turn may be due to the round shape of the plant as though turned on a lathe, or because it must be turned and twisted to be harvested. Cognate to neep. See also parsnip.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.