vegetable marrow

American  

noun

1. any of various summer squashes, as the cocozelle and zucchini.

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vegetable marrow British  

noun

1. a cucurbitaceous plant, Cucurbita pepo, probably native to America but widely cultivated for its oblong green striped fruit, which is eaten as a vegetable

2. Also called: marrow squash.  the fruit of this plant

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Etymology

Origin of vegetable marrow

First recorded in 1810–20

Example Sentences

EB White said of Punch – originally launched in 1841, and subtitled the London Charivari – that it was "as British as vegetable marrow", and that it constituted a legislature in its own right.

From The Guardian • Jun. 4, 2010

But nature, ever bountiful, supplies its place with the mi-cadania or butter tree, which yields abundance of a kind of vegetable marrow, pleasant to the taste, and highly esteemed by the natives.

From Lander's Travels The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa by Huish, Robert

Use.—The fruit is eaten while it is quite young and small; served in the manner of cucumbers, or like vegetable marrow.

From The Field and Garden Vegetables of America Containing Full Descriptions of Nearly Eleven Hundred Species and Varietes; With Directions for Propagation, Culture and Use. by Burr, Fearing

Vegetable Marrow Soup.—Take a large vegetable marrow, peel it, cut it open, remove all the pips, and place it in a stew-pan with about two ounces of fresh butter.

From Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery A Manual of Cheap and Wholesome Diet by Payne, A. G.

They were followed by the geisha, each girl carrying a little white china bottle shaped like a vegetable marrow, and a tiny cup like the bath which hygienic old maids provide for their canary birds.

From Kimono by Paris, John