כְּרֵשָׁה (kreshah) — leek

Etymology

The leek has been cultivated and eaten in the ancient Near East for at least five thousand years. In the Proto-Semitic language spoken around 3000 BCE, the vegetable was called something like *karatu. As the Semitic peoples diverged into separate nations and languages, this root evolved into parallel forms: karašu in Akkadian, karaath in Arabic, karatei in Aramaic, and כְּרֵשָׁה in Hebrew. The Mishnah (c. 200 CE) contains the earliest Hebrew attestation, and the word appears abundantly in rabbinic literature — evidence that leeks were a staple of the ancient Palestinian diet. Alongside the Hebrew כְּרֵשָׁה, the rabbis also used the Aramaic form כָּרָתֵי and the loan-word קַפְלוֹט, a corruption of the Greek kephalōton ("having a head").

Despite leeks being ubiquitous in rabbinic writing, the plant does not appear in the Torah under this name. The Talmudic tradition resolved this by identifying the biblical חָצִיר — normally "grass" — with the leek when it appears in Numbers 11:5 alongside onions and garlic in the list of Egyptian foods the Israelites missed in the desert. Onkelos translated חָצִיר as karti (Aramaic for leek) and Targum Yonatan as kaplotia. Medieval commentators followed suit: Rashi (southern France) glossed חָצִיר as "pourrilesh" (Old French for leek), while Maimonides, writing in Muslim Spain, identified it with karaath, the Arabic name.

The leek's Indo-European name-family runs in parallel. A Proto-Indo-European root *prso- gave Greek prason, Latin porrum, Old French pourrileish (Rashi's word), Modern French poireau, Italian porro, Spanish porro, and Romanian por. In the Germanic branch the Old High German form lawwkaz spawned English leek, Dutch look, and German Lauch. Via Yiddish, both the Germanic form (lowkh) and Polish puri entered Jewish households. The Ottoman Turkish form, pırasa — borrowed from Byzantine Greek — became the Ladino prasah, which is why Sephardic families in Israel say פְּרָסָה for leek.

When Hebrew was revived as a spoken language and lexicographers had to choose an official name, the field was contested. Pines's 1891 translation used כְּרֵשָׁה; a 1892 agronomical article proposed חָצִיר; the 1927 German-Hebrew dictionary of Tur-Sinai and Lazar listed both כְּרֵשָׁה and כָּרָתֵי; Va'ad ha-Lashon in 1930 recognized all four traditional names; and the major dictionaries of the 1930s–1940s converged on כְּרֵשָׁה. Meanwhile Tnuva, marketing leeks from the late 1930s onward, popularized the name לוּף (from German Lauch), which appears in print by 1947. Linguist Yitzhak Avinery campaigned in 1959 for חָצִיר and then, a year later, warned against the spread of לוּף — to no avail. Today written Hebrew uses כְּרֵשָׁה officially, while spoken Hebrew is split: Sephardic families say פְּרָסָה, Ashkenazi families often say לוּף.

Key Quotes

"כרוב ארץ-ישראל איננו ככרוב מאסקויא" — Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Ha-Tzvi, 1886 (illustrating the naming chaos of this period)

"מצוה לתקן את הדבר בעוד מועד, בטרם נשתרש ונשתגר הלוף בפי כל" — Yitzhak Avinery, Luhot ha-Koperatsia, c. 1960

Timeline

• c. 3000 BCE: Proto-Semitic *karatu, earliest reconstructed form
• c. 200 CE: כְּרֵשָׁה first attested in the Mishnah
• 11th–12th century: Rashi glosses biblical ḥatsir as "pourrilesh" (Old French leek); Maimonides as Arabic karaath
• 1891: Pines uses כְּרֵשָׁה in Hebrew translation of German agronomy book
• 1892: Menahem Meirovitz uses חָצִיר in "Tzmehei Eretz ha-Tzvi"
• 1927: Tur-Sinai & Lazar dictionary lists כְּרֵשָׁה and כָּרָתֵי
• 1930: Va'ad ha-Lashon lists כְּרֵשָׁה, חָצִיר, כָּרָתֵי, קַפְלוֹט
• Late 1930s: Tnuva markets leeks under the name לוּף (from German Lauch)
• 1939: Zagorodsky's agricultural dictionary uses כָּרָתֵי
• 1949: Avraham Even-Shoshan's dictionary chooses כְּרֵשָׁה
• 1947–: לוּף spreads in spoken Hebrew, first print evidence 1947
• 1959–1960: Avinery campaigns for חָצִיר; warns against לוּף; neither campaign succeeds

Related Words

• חָצִיר — biblical word for grass; rabbinically identified with leek; championed as leek-name by Avinery
• כָּרָתֵי — Aramaic form of the same Semitic root, used by Onkelos and in rabbinic literature
• קַפְלוֹט — rabbinic loanword from Greek kephalōton; a type of leek
• לוּף — popular Ashkenazi name, from German Lauch via Yiddish; also a separate plant in the Mishnah
• פְּרָסָה — popular Sephardic name, from Ottoman Turkish pırasa (from Greek prason)
• בָּצָל — onion (mentioned alongside leek in Numbers 11:5)