colewort

English

Growing head of B. oleracea Botrytis Group at Hooghly near Bandel in West Bengal, India

From Middle English coolwort, coulwort, cole-wort, caule worte, equivalent to cole +‎ wort.

colewort (usually uncountable, plural coleworts)

A plant of the genus Brassica; now specifically, a Brassica plant without a head used for food, such as kale.
- 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], OCLC 15537294:
  Fat coleworts, and comforting perseline , Cold lettuce , and refreshing rosmarine
- 1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia:
  [W]e may observe that water will more readily wet some woods then others; and that water, let fall upon a Feather, the whiter side of a Colwort, and some other leaves, or upon almost any dusty, unctuous, or resinous superficies, will not at all adhere to them, but easily tumble off from them, like a solid Bowl […].

kale