celery seed

1 2.3

Small seeds from the celery plant used to add flavor to food

noun
/ˈsɛləri sid/

: semilla de apio

Some recipes call for celery seed instead of chopped celery stalks.

You never had celery seed or celery leaf as a spice, you stupid, uncultured fucking.

Examples

I sprinkled some celery seed on my salad.
For a flavorful twist, sprinkle celery seed over the roasted vegetables before serving.
She sprinkled celery seed into the potato salad for extra flavor.
The dressing is made more aromatic by adding a pinch of celery seed.
The recipe calls for a teaspoon of celery seeds.
To enhance the flavor of the dish, add a teaspoon of celery seed to the dressing.
The recipe calls for celery seed to add a unique taste to the vegetable salad.

Surface Forms

celery seed singular

celery seeds plural

Morphology

celery + seed

The meaning 'the small seed of the celery plant' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'celery' (the vegetable) with 'seed' (a plant part); this follows a regular noun–noun compounding pattern. The referent is concrete and cross-linguistically predictable, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the meaning.

Etymology

Celery seed is the tiny seed of the celery plant that people dry and keep for cooking. Because these small seeds have a strong celery taste, cooks sprinkle them into salads and dressings, so the name now means 'a seasoning' used to give celery flavor.