Cab"bage , n. Cloth or clippings cabbaged or purloined by one who cuts out garments.
Cab"bage , v. i. [imp. & p. p Cabbaged (-b&asl;jd); p. pr. & vb. n. Cabbaging (-b&asl;*j&ibreve;ng).]
[F. cabasser, fr. OF. cabas theft; cf. F. cabas basket, and OF. cabuser to cheat.] To purloin or embezzle, as the pieces of cloth remaining after cutting out a
garment; to pilfer.
Your tailor . . .
cabbages whole yards of
cloth.
Arbuthnot.
Cab"bage , v. i. To form a head like that the
cabbage; as, to make lettuce cabbage. Johnson.
Cab"bage (kăb"b&asl;j), n. [OE. cabage, fr. F.
cabus headed (of
cabbages), chou cabus headed cabbage, cabbage head; cf. It. capuccio a little head, cappuccio cowl, hood, cabbage, fr. capo
head, L. caput, or fr. It. cappa cape. See Chief, Cape.]
(Bot.)
1. An esculent vegetable of many varieties, derived from the wild
Brassica oleracea of
Europe. The common cabbage has a
compact head of leaves. The cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, etc., are sometimes classed as
cabbages.
2. The terminal bud of certain palm trees, used, like, cabbage, for food. See Cabbage tree, below.
3. The cabbage palmetto. See below.
Cabbage
aphis (Zoöl.),
a green plant-louse (Aphis brassicæ) which lives upon the leaves of the
cabbage. -- Cabbage beetle
(Zoöl.), a small, striped flea- beetle (Phyllotreta
vittata) which lives, in the larval
state, on the roots, and when adult, on the leaves, of cabbage and other cruciferous
plants. -- Cabbage butterfly (Zoöl.), a white butterfly (Pieris
rapæ of both Europe and America, and the allied P. oleracea, a native American species) which, in the larval
state, devours the leaves of the
cabbage and the turnip. See Cabbage worm, below. -- Cabbage fly (Zoöl.), a small two-winged fly (Anthomyia
brassicæ), which
feeds, in the larval or maggot state, on the roots of
the cabbage, often doing much damage to the crop. -- Cabbage head, the compact head formed by the
leaves of a
cabbage; -- contemptuously or humorously, and colloquially,
a very stupid and silly person; a numskull. -- Cabbage palmetto,
a species of palm tree
(Sabal Palmetto) found along the coast from North Carolina to Florida. -- Cabbage rose (Bot.), a species of
rose (Rosa centifolia) having large and heavy blossoms. -- Cabbage tree, Cabbage palm, a name given
to palms having a terminal bud called a cabbage, as the Sabal Palmetto of the United States, and the Euterpe oleracea and
Oreodoxa oleracea of the West Indies. -- Cabbage worm (Zoöl.), the larva of several species of moths and butterflies, which attacks cabbages. The most common is usually the larva of a white butterfly. See Cabbage butterfly, above. The cabbage cutworms, which eat off
the stalks of young plants during the night, are the larvæ of several species of moths, of the
genus Agrotis. See Cutworm. -- Sea cabbage.(Bot.)
(a) Sea kale (b). The original Plant (Brassica
oleracea), from which the cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli,
etc., have been derived by cultivation. -- Thousand-headed cabbage. See Brussels sprouts.
Hear it pronounced