🍆 A purple vegetable 🌱 A vegetable plant

aubergine

1 5.4

A hairy tall plant that produces large purple fruits you can eat

noun
/ˈoʊbərˌdʒin/

: berenjena

The chef prepared a delicious dish featuring roasted aubergine topped with herbs and spices.

Examples

And his mum just does these aubergines fried in bread crumbs.
The extra-large is available in glacier, pebble, tulip, cayenne, moss and aubergine.

Downsizing (2017)
We have our aubergine and miso pork glaze, and in here there's bowel buns that I'm really nervous about, but it's going to be fine.
In my garden, the aubergine plants are producing large, juicy fruits this season.
She added slices of aubergine to the stir-fry for extra flavor and texture.

Synonyms

eggplant

vsaubergine

54 1.0

A purple vegetable with shiny skin that you can eat

focuses on the plant's hairy upright habit and native origin

brinjal

vsaubergine

Indian

1 8.4

A purple vegetable like an eggplant that you cook and eat

is the general term for the species rather than a regional form

eggplant bush

vsaubergine

4.5

A short upright plant that grows large glossy purple eggplants used as a vegetable

is the common shorter name used in everyday speech

Solanum melongena

vsaubergine

Specialized

6.9

A plant that produces large glossy purple or white fruits called eggplant

is the everyday common term rather than scientific label

garden egg

vsaubergine

6.5

A small round eggplant that people eat as a vegetable in West Africa

is the widespread species name not limited to one region

mad apple

vsaubergine

Archaic

9.9

A large purple vegetable with shiny skin that you cook and eat

is the standard modern name rather than an archaic label

Surface Forms

aubergine singular

aubergines plural

eggplants plural

eggplant singular

Etymology

The word aubergine came into English from French and originally from Arabic al-badinjan, a name that passed through Persian and Indian languages for the plant. A helpful way to remember it is that British aubergine is the same vegetable Americans call 'eggplant', because some old varieties were white and looked like an 'egg'.