Also 7 cellery, 7–8 selleri, -y, 8 sallary, -ery, celeri. [a. F. céleri (not in Cotgr.), according to Littré a. dial. It. sellari, pl. of sellaro (Brescian se·leno, literary It. se·dano), repr. Gr. σέλινον parsley.]
An umbelliferous plant (Apium graveolens) cultivated for the use of its blanched stalks as a salad and vegetable; in its wild form (SMALLAGE) indigenous in some parts of England.
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort. (1669), 34. February, Sow in the beginning … Sellery.
1673. Ray, Journ. Low C., 406. (Italian food) Selleri … the young shoots whereof they eat raw with oyl and pepper.
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, 256. Parsley and Celery, both contain a pungent Salt and Oil.
1753. Hanway, Trav. (1762), I. IV. lvii. 263. Poor devotees, who come on a pilgrimage from their own country, and subsist upon wild sallary.
1832. Veg. Subst. Food, 190. Celery … in its wild state … known by the name of smallage.
1869. Oliver, Elem. Bot., II. 183. Celery … is only wholesome when blanched.
attrib.
1719. London & Wise, Compl. Gard., 203. We earth our Cellery Plants quite up, with Earth taken from the high-rais’d Path-ways.
1865. J. G. Wood, Homes without H., xiv. 299. Of the Diptera, the Celery Fly (Tephritis onopordinis) is a good example.
1882. Garden, 14 Jan., 23/3. For beauty of barring the Celery fly may compare with most.
