Broccoli looks like a plural, and in Italian it is one. English borrowed it as a single word, so you say the broccoli is hot, not the broccoli are.
Broccoli is a green vegetable with a thick stem and a head made of tiny flower buds. People eat it steamed, roasted, in soup or raw with a dip.
BROK-uh-lee
The stress is on the first part. The double c sounds like one plain k, and the last two parts are light and quick.
We had broccoli and rice for dinner.
The broccoli is still hot, so wait a minute.
Dad cut the broccoli into small trees for the soup.
Is there any broccoli left?
In English, broccoli is an uncountable noun. You do not add an s, and you do not say a broccoli. It takes a singular verb: the broccoli is ready, not the broccoli are ready.
To count it, use a measuring phrase:
No s, and no a.
❌ I ate a broccoli.
❌ I ate three broccolis.
✅ I ate some broccoli.
✅ I ate three pieces of broccoli.
Spelling. Two Cs and one L.
❌ brocolli
✅ broccoli
Mum: Please eat your broccoli.
Leo: Is it the tree part or the stalk part?
Mum: Both.
Leo: Then I will eat the trees first.
Broccoli comes from Italian. In Italian, broccoli is the plural of broccolo, which means a sprout or a cabbage sprout. Broccolo is a small form of brocco, a word for a shoot. So the Italian word means roughly "little shoots".
English borrowed the plural form and used it as one word. It is recorded in English in the 1650s, and Italian-English dictionaries explained it as "sprouts or tops of coleworts" in the 1590s.
Think of broccoli as many little shoots in one word. The word is already plural in Italian, so English does not add anything: no s, no a, just a head of broccoli.
A plural that thinks it is one word.
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