Carrot

Forms: 6 caret, carete, carette, carot, carote, carotte, 6–7 carret, 7 carrat, carroote, 7– carrot. [a. F. carotte:—L. carōta; ad. Gr. καρωτόν ? f. κάρᾱ head, top. (Cf. κεφαλωτόν, headed, said of plants, as garlic.)]

  1.  An umbelliferous plant (Daucus Carota) having a large, tapering root, which in cultivation is bright red, fleshy, sweet and edible.

1538.  Turner, Libellus, Daucus creticus … mihi uidetur anglis esse, Wylde carot. Ibid. (1548), Names of Herbes, 60. Carettes growe in al countreis in plentie.

1565–78.  Cooper, Thesaurus, Carota … the wilde caret.

1794.  Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xvii. 232. Carrot has a large winged involucre.

1832.  Veg. Subst. Food, 237. Unsuccessful attempts to change by culture the wild carrot into the esculent one.

  2.  Usually, the edible root itself.

1533.  Elyot, Cast. Helthe (1541), 28 b. Parsnepes and carettes … do nourishe with better iuyce than the other rootes.

1634.  Althorp MS., in Simpkinson, Washingtons, Introd. 26. Parsenipps and carrootes.

1776.  Johnson, in Boswell (1887), II. 439. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.

1783.  Cowper, Epit. Hare. Slic’d carrot pleas’d him well.

1832.  Veg. Subst. Food, 244. The quantity of nutritive matter … in the whole weight of carrot, being 98 parts in 1000.

  b.  Something shaped like a carrot; a plug.

1646.  Sir J. Temple, Irish Rebell., 106. The Rebels … put a gag or carret in the said Master Bingham’s mouth.

1808.  Pike, Sources Mississ., I. 17. I … presented him with two carrots of tobacco.

  3.  pl. Applied humorously or derisively to ‘red’ or ‘carroty’ hair, or to one who has such hair. (In the latter case used like a proper name.)

c. 1685.  Yng. Man’s Counsellour, Roxb. Ball., II. 559. The Carrots I’d like to forgot, which is the worst colour of all.

1685.  S. Wesley, Maggots, On a Cow’s Tail, 57.

1690.  B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Carrots, Red hair’d People.

1775.  Sheridan, Rivals, I. i. Jack Gauge, the exciseman, has ta’en to his carrots.

1876.  Mrs. Molesworth (title), ‘Carrots,’ Just a little boy.

  4.  attrib. or as adj. = CARROTY. ? Obs.

1671.  Glanvill, Disc. M. Stubbe, 28. If I had said your head was Red, I had not been such a Liar neither; it was direct Carrot.

c. 1680.  Roxburgh Ball. (1886), VI. 219. The Carrot pate be sure you hate, for she’l be true to no man.

1710.  Palmer, Proverbs, 114. To picture Judas with … a squint eye … a carrot beard.

1877.  Blackie, Wise Men, 95. The roving Scythian, with his carrot curls.

  5.  Comb., as carrot-colo(u)red, -eating, -headed, -pated adjs., carrot-fly, -poultice, -root, -seed; carrot-tree, an umbelliferous shrub (Monizia edulis) with an edible root, found in Deserta Grande, an uninhabited island S.E. of Madeira.

1647.  Cleveland, Smectymn., 63, in Char. Lond. Diurn., 27. Robson and French … May tire their *Carret-Bunch.

1684.  Lond. Gaz., No. 1935/4. A *Carrot coloured Beard and Hair.

1672.  Davenant, News fr. Plymouth (1673), 13. These *Carrot-eating Dutch.

1882.  Garden, 1 April, 219/1. The *Carrot fly (Psila rosæ) is one of the true flies.

1719.  D’Urfey, Pills, II. 323. Confound the *Carrot Pated Jade.

1808.  Med. Jrnl., XIX. 349. The *carrot poultice … would perhaps be useful.

1595.  Househ. Bk. Earl Cumbrld., in T. D. Whitaker, Hist. Craven (1812), 320. Pd. for vi cabishes, and some *caret rootts bought at Hull, 11s.

1831.  J. Davies, Manual Mat. Med., 187. Carrot Root … has been employed in decoction as a stimulant.

1832.  Veg. Subst. Food, 242. *Carrot-seed is raised … in Essex.

1866.  Treas. Bot., II. 750. The *Carrot-tree, has a crooked woody stem one to four feet high…. The orchil-gatherers and fishermen … eat the roots.