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Glite Dictionary
purple onion

purple onion

2.0
A round vegetable with purple skin and a mild, slightly sweet taste often eaten raw in salads or on burgers
  • noun
  • /ˈpɜrpl ˈʌnjən/
translation icon : cebolla morada
  • She was slicing purple onions for a salad.
  • chopped purple onion
  • tablespoons finely chopped purple onion
  • cup chopped purple onion

Examples

  • She had finished with the purple onions, and now she was tearing spinach leaves from their stems.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • She finished with the spinach and tossed the salad in its mahogany bowl, the dark wrinkled leaves green against the purple onions.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • She was slicing purple onion for a fresh salad.

  • The recipe called for one diced purple onion to enhance the flavor.

  • He added purple onion rings on top of the hamburger for extra crunch.

Synonyms

red onion
vspurple onion
10 1.0

An onion with red skin and a mild sweet taste used raw in salads

is milder and used also as a sandwich or burger garnish
red-skinned onion
vspurple onion
2.4

A vegetable with red outer skin that people eat raw or cooked

is milder and mainly used raw as a garnish rather than for cooking

Surface Forms

purple onion singular
purple onions plural

Morphology

purple + onion

The meaning 'a type of onion with purplish-red skin' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'purple' (the color) with 'onion' (the vegetable). The color + noun compositional pattern is common in English and other languages, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

The noun purple onion is a simple name: it is an onion with purple skin and pale rings inside. Because it looks bright and tastes mild, cooks often add it raw to salads and burgers, so purple onion came to mean 'a type of onion with a mild flavor used as a garnish'.