rhubarb definition - Dictionary

Dictionary

rhu·barb [ r brb ]

noun

Definition:

1. stalks cooked as fruit: the pink stalks of a cultivated perennial plant, cooked as fruit

2. plant with edible stalks: a perennial plant with poisonous leaves that produces rhubarb. Genus Rheum.

3. pharmacology medicinal Asian plant: a medicinal rhubarb plant native to central and eastern Asia. Use: dried underground stems as laxative.

[14th century. Via Old French reubarbe< Latin rha barbarum "barbarian rhubarb" < Greek Rha, the Volga River]

Word History


	The Greeks had two words for rhubarb: rhēon (which evolved into Latin rheum, now the plant's scientific name) and rha, which is said to have come from Rha, an ancient name of the river Volga, in allusion to the fact that rhubarb was once grown on its banks (rhubarb is native to China, and was once imported to Europe via Russia). In medieval Latin rhubarb became known as rha barbarum "barbarian rhubarb, foreign rhubarb," again with reference to the plant's exotic origins; and in due course association with Latin rheum altered this to rheubarbarum.