Library / English Dictionary

ONION

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

An aromatic flavorful vegetable

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("onion" is a kind of...):

veg; vegetable; veggie (edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "onion"):

Bermuda onion (mild flat onion grown in warm areas)

green onion; scallion; spring onion (a young onion before the bulb has enlarged; eaten in salads)

Vidalia onion (sweet-flavored onion grown in Georgia)

Spanish onion (large mild and succulent onion; often eaten raw)

shallot (small mild-flavored onion-like or garlic-like clustered bulbs used for seasoning)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Bulbous plant having hollow leaves cultivated worldwide for its rounded edible bulb

Synonyms:

Allium cepa; onion; onion plant

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("onion" is a kind of...):

alliaceous plant (bulbous plants having a characteristic pungent onion odor)

Meronyms (parts of "onion"):

onion (the bulb of an onion plant)

Meronyms (substance of "onion"):

isothiocyanate (a family of compounds derived from horseradish and radishes and onions and mustards; source of the hotness of those plants and preparations)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "onion"):

Allium ascalonicum; Allium cepa aggregatum; eschalot; multiplier onion; shallot (type of onion plant producing small clustered mild-flavored bulbs used as seasoning)

Allium cepa viviparum; Egyptian onion; top onion; tree onion (type of perennial onion grown chiefly as a curiosity or for early salad onions; having bulbils that replace the flowers)

Allium fistulosum; Japanese leek; Welsh onion (Asiatic onion with slender bulbs; used as early green onions)

Allium haematochiton; red-skinned onion (onion with white to deep red tunic; California)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The bulb of an onion plant

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("onion" is a kind of...):

bulb (a modified bud consisting of a thickened globular underground stem serving as a reproductive structure)

Holonyms ("onion" is a part of...):

Allium cepa; onion; onion plant (bulbous plant having hollow leaves cultivated worldwide for its rounded edible bulb)

Credits

 Context examples: 

In the large kitchen, where I dimly saw bacon and ropes of onions hanging from the beams, the watchers were clustered together, in various attitudes, about a table, purposely moved away from the great chimney, and brought near the door.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

From the heavy wooden rafters which formed the roof there hung rows of hooks which held up sides of bacon, joints of smoked beef, and strings of onions for winter use.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The leaves of garlic plants are neither inflated like onion leaves nor tubular like those of bunching onions.

(Allium sativum, NCI Thesaurus)

Among them I remember a double set of pigs' trotters, a huge pin-cushion, half a bushel or so of apples, a pair of jet earrings, some Spanish onions, a box of dominoes, a canary bird and cage, and a leg of pickled pork.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)