Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A variety of the common beet having a large yellowish root, used chiefly as cattle feed.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A variety of beet, Beta vulgaris macrorhiza, producing a larger and coarser root than the garden-beet, which is extensively cultivated as food for cattle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A kind of large field beet (Beta macrorhiza), used as food for cattle, -- by some considered a mere variety of the ordinary beet. See beet.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative spelling of mangelwurzel.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun cultivated as feed for livestock
  • noun beet with a large yellowish root; grown chiefly as cattle feed

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[German Mangelwurzel, alteration (influenced by Mangel, scarcity) of Mangoldwurzel : Mangold, beet (from Middle High German mānegolt) + Wurzel, root; see wrād- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • Another column of smoke erupted from the tank car of compressed mangel-wurzel, delaying any hopes the neighbors might have had of returning to their homes.

    La insistencia de Jürgen Fauth 2010

  • Perhaps it is mangel-wurzel that we see in Rasputin.

    La insistencia de Jürgen Fauth 2010

  • In Europe there is grown widely a large beet they call the mangel-wurzel.

    La insistencia de Jürgen Fauth 2010

  • Certainly there is mangel-wurzel in the music of Wagner, although it is another composer whose name begins, B-e-e-t --.

    La insistencia de Jürgen Fauth 2010

  • The cigar looked like some kind of vegetable, a root crop, related, perhaps, to the mangel-wurzel.

    La insistencia de Jürgen Fauth 2010

  • Is there a position in the Kama Sutra that we have not mastered, a recipe for mangel-wurzel that our cook pot hasn't memorized?

    La insistencia de Jürgen Fauth 2010

  • They dined on Indian corn, mangel-wurzel, fish scraps and whatever else was fed them, including the pith of the palm and tree fern.

    Morgan’s Run Colleen McCullough 2000

  • They dined on Indian corn, mangel-wurzel, fish scraps and whatever else was fed them, including the pith of the palm and tree fern.

    Morgan’s Run Colleen McCullough 2000

  • He skirts their fires, stealthy - All he wants is a handful of greens here, a carrot or mangel-wurzel there, just to keep him going.

    Gravity's Rainbow Pynchon, Thomas 1978

  • I am of a sensitive nature, and it cut me to the heart to see cold winds nipping the fruit and trees, the flood of rain beating down the corn, the oats, and the mangel-wurzel.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, October 17, 1891 Various

Comments

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  • Also mangold-wurzel or mangoldwurzel, among others. I can't help thinking of hurdy-gurdies though. Could one construct one from the other?

    April 21, 2008