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Cabbage, Not the Vegetable
Does the "filching" meaning of cabbage bring to mind an image of thieves sneaking out of farm fields with armloads of pilfered produce? If so, you're in for a surprise. This use has nothing to do with the leafy vegetable. It originally referred to the practice among tailors of pocketing part of the cloth given to them to make garments. The verb was cut from the same cloth as an older British noun cabbage, which meant "pieces of cloth left in cutting out garments and traditionally kept by tailors as perquisites." Both of those ethically questionable cabbages probably derived from cabas, the Middle French word for "cheating or theft." The cabbage found in coleslaw, on the other hand, comes from Middle English caboche, which meant "head."
Examples of cabbage in a Sentence
Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 26 Oct. 2025
Napa cabbage is an option, just note that the leaves are thinner, more tender and apt to wilt more than green cabbage.
—Robin Miller, AZCentral.com, 24 Oct. 2025
And with them came their love of prank playing, which had once included scaring people by tying a string to a cabbage and pulling it through a field at night, or carving a gourd with a glowing face.
—Chris Kenning, USA Today, 24 Oct. 2025
Rutabaga Rutabaga is a cross between a cabbage and a turnip.
—Jillian Kubala, Health, 23 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for cabbage
Cite this Entry
“Cabbage.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cabbage. Accessed 27 Oct. 2025.
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