asparagusn.

Etymology: Latin, < Greek ἀσπάραγος , properly ἀσϕάραγος , of doubtful origin. In medieval Latin often sparagus , sparagi (Old Italian sparagi , sparaci ), found in English c1000. Thence also modern Italian sparagio , German spargen , Middle French esperage , and English sperage , the common name in 16th and early 17th cent., occasionally, from etymological notions, made sperach (after smallache , smallage , etc.: see ache n.²), or sparage. About 1600 the influence of herbalists and horticultural writers made asparagus familiar, and this in the aphetic form 'sparagus at length displaced sperage, but was itself by popular etymology corrupted before 1650 to sparagrass, sparrow-grass, which remained the polite name during the 18th cent. Botanists still wrote asparagus, but according to Walker Pron. Dict. 1791, ‘Sparrow-grass is so general that asparagus has an air of stiffness and pedantry.’ During the 19th century asparagus returned into literary and polite use, leaving sparrow-grass to the illiterate; though ‘grass’ still occurred in cookery books.