Spinach

How to spell spinach

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce spinach

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does spinach mean?

1. nounA leafy green vegetable with dark, soft, edible leaves eaten cooked or raw.

Spinach in a sentence

• She added a handful of fresh spinach to the salad bowl.

• The recipe calls for wilted spinach and a little nutmeg.

Where does spinach come from?

Language of origin: Arabic

Spinach travelled a long way before reaching English plates. The ultimate source is the Persian aspanākh, the name of the leafy plant, which passed into Arabic as isbinākh among Arabic speakers in medieval Spain. From there it became the Spanish espinaca, then the Old French espinache or espinage, and English picked it up in the late 1300s. Because the French forms ended in a soft sound, English writers settled on the puzzling -ach ending that we still keep, even though it is pronounced like a soft 'itch' or 'idge'. A folk association grew up linking the word to the Latin spina meaning 'thorn or spine', supposedly because of the prickly seeds of some varieties, but that connection is uncertain and probably came after the borrowing rather than before it. The mismatch between how it sounds and how it is written is exactly what makes the spelling worth a second look.

How the word is built

• spinach (single unanalysable root, borrowed whole; no productive prefix or suffix)