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beet green

beet green

1 3.5
Young leaves of the beet plant that you can cook or eat in salads
  • noun
  • /bit ɡrin/
translation icon : hojas de remolacha
  • (and I even had the kidney stones from eating too many beet greens and damn Swiss chard!)
  • beet greens salad
  • a bunch of beet greens
  • baby beet greens

If you've ever had beet greens before, beet greens are just the smaller cousin to Swiss Chard.

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Examples

  • So we'll have tall Swiss Chard and then the beet greens will fill in kind of right below the Chard.

  • We will sample mustard greens, arugula, chard, beet greens.

    Blog text (7)
  • My mom used to fix beet greens.

    Blog text (33)
  • Beet greens

    Blog text (4)
  • "Dear," the old woman said, "it all depends on whether they have rigged scales or little beets." "Do we get beet greens, too?" Polina asked.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • If you've ever had beet greens before, beet greens are just the smaller cousin to Swiss Chard.

  • Saturday was homemade beet and potato gnocchi with fresh beet greens, arugula, and shaved Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

    Blog text (22)
  • You are instructed to cut out all dark leafy greens from your diet, including kale, beet greens, spinach, and Swiss chard, and eat a ton of low-fat dairy.

    Blog text (18)
  • My mother used to make a wonderful salad out of beet greens and pecans with a honey Dijon dressing.

  • Cut off the beet greens and reserve them for ravioli filling or soup.

Synonyms

spinach beet
vsbeet green
  • UK
4.2

A leafy vegetable grown for its leaves and stalks instead of its root

is specifically the young edible leaves rather than the whole plant variety
leaf beet
vsbeet green
3.5

A vegetable with large green leaves and thick stalks that people grow for its edible stems and leaves

is the tender young leaves rather than a plant with thick stalks

Surface Forms

beet green singular
beet greens plural

Morphology

beet + green

The meaning 'the edible young leaves of the beetroot plant' is directly compositional from 'beet' (the beetroot plant) + 'green' (leafy vegetable), so a learner who knows both constituents can infer it. This noun+noun compound follows a common English pattern (and has clear parallels in other languages), making the phrase immediately understandable to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Beet green is a simple name for the leafy part of the beet plant. It is literally the beet plant's greens, the leaves people cook or eat, so it means 'the edible young leaves of the beetroot plant'.