cruciferous
Americanadjective
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bearing a cross.
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Botany. belonging to the family Cruciferae (or Brassicaceae), the mustard family of plants; brassicaceous.
Are you getting enough broccoli, cauliflower, and other cruciferous vegetables in your diet?
adjective
Etymology
Origin of cruciferous
From Late Latin crucifer + -ous; cruciferous def. 1 was first recorded in 1650–60; cruciferous def. 2 in 1850–55; see origin at crucifer, -ous
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The broccoli rabe was turned into a kind of cruciferous pesto.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 26, 2025
In this case, if you look at all of the observational research on cruciferous vegetables and colon cancer, it appears that people who eat more of the veggies have less cancer.
From Slate • Sep. 5, 2025
It is nutrient-packed, like the rest of its cruciferous brethren, yet it has not always garnered the same respect as cauliflower, Brussels spouts or even broccoli.
From Salon • Mar. 14, 2024
Investigators also looked into whether consuming soy, lignans, cruciferous vegetables and green tea, or their phytonutrients in the diet before or after breast cancer diagnosis made a difference.
From Science Daily • Jan. 10, 2024
Scur′viness, state of being scurvy: meanness; Scur′vy-grass, a genus of cruciferous plants, efficacious in curing scurvy.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
