Definition of "broccolo"

Meanwhile he groweth like a wild nettle, / And shooteth up like unto a broccolo, / Papa sendeth him to school, / And expendeth upon him his coins of gold;

a. 1890, “Epilogue—The Stove”, in Richard Burton, transl., Il Pentamerone; or, the Tale of Tales. […], volume the second, London: Henry and Co., […], translation of Il Pentamerone: Lo Cunto de li Cunti by Giambattista Basile, published 1893, page 341

“I believe I mustn’t start tealing yet awhile,” said the old man, regretfully plunging his long Cornish spade into the baked earth, from which insufficient stability the instrument fell with a thump on to the path. […] “I feel frightened, Mr. Champion,” said Jenny suddenly. […] “Supposing it wasn’t a person at all?” said Jenny desperately. “You know, like us?” / The old man considered for a moment this morbid fancy. / “That’s a wisht old thought,” he said at last, “and I don’t see no call for it at all. When I do teal a lily root, I don’t expect to see a broccolo come bursting up and annoying me.”

1912 March, Compton Mackenzie, “Harvest Home”, in Carnival, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton and Company, pages 367–368

CELERY. (Apium graveolens.) / A cross between a Broccolo and a Cabbage, but not now better for attention. […] CHOU DE BURGHLEY. / A cross between a Broccolo and a Cabbage, but not now grown to any extent.

1913, Trevor Monmouth, Vegetable Culture for Amateurs: Alphabetically Arranged with a Practical Calendar of Operations for the Year, London: L. Upcott Gill, pages 25, 28

(Open Classes.) / Judge: Mr L. Page. / […] Two broccoli. One entry—G. H. Bayles 1. […] / One broccolo. One entry—Ivan Boyes 1.

1927 May 12, The Otago Daily Times, “Vegetables”, page 7, column 3

“Filler” item in a daily newspaper: “The singular of broccoli is broccolo.” / In other words: / Customer: “I’ll have a dish of broccoli, please.” / Waiter: “I’m veddy soddy, sir, but we don’t have a single broccolo in the place today.” / And that ends our little lesson on the etiquette of grammar for today. You may go now, children—and never forget, we always eat every last broccolo on our plate.”

1946 January 24, The Pilot-Tribune, volume 76, number 39, Blair, Neb., page 2, column 2

The idea of enticing women aboard with the promise of a banana burgeoned like a blooming broccolo.

1974 March 8, Dick Nolan, “Bridge goes bananas”, in San Francisco Examiner, number 232, San Francisco, Calif., page 37, column 5

Technically, there is no such thing as one zucchini. We rarely refer to one spaghetto or one broccolo, because it’s not considered good form to serve just one. But there are a lot of broccoli - a whole bunch, in fact, - on a single stem, whereas there is only one zucchino.

1977 September 1, Marian H. Mundy, “Today’s Mundy: Under-Beamed and Over-Zucchinied”, in The Bernardsville News, volume 79, number 36, Bernardsville, N.J., section “Grow Power”, page 15, column 3

If you only ate one branch of the broccoli on your plate, you ate a broccolo.

1991 December 29, L.M. Boyd, The Sunday Times, Munster, Ind., page I-1, column 1

Some always suffer a bad hair day while others eat a broccolo

2004 March 4, L.M. Boyd, Victoria Advocate, number 302, Victoria, Tex., page 5D, column 4

> >> Or "I didn't use much to like broccoli." / > >I didn't use to lie broccoli much. / > It is best to be honest with broccoli. They see right through a lie. / You can fool one broccolo all of the time; you can fool all broccoli some of the time; but you can't fool all broccoli all of the time.

2004 May 16, Bob Cunningham, “040516 1252Z”, in alt.usage.english (Usenet)