water chestnut

noun

1

: any of a genus (Trapa, especially T. natans of the family Lythraceae, the loosestrife family) of Old World aquatic herbs sometimes grown as ornamentals

also : its edible nutlike spiny fruit

2

: a whitish crunchy vegetable used especially in Chinese cooking that is the peeled and often sliced tuber of a sedge (Eleocharis dulcis synonym E. tuberosa) native to Asia but widely cultivated elsewhere

also : the tuber or the sedge itself

Examples of water chestnut in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Several food items measured at potentially hazardous temperatures, including noodles, water chestnut, bamboo shoots and barbecue pork. —Camila Pedrosa, Sacramento Bee, 17 Jan. 2025

Scientists examined tools used to prepare food hundreds of thousands of years ago and found substances indicating that ancient humans ate not only meat, including rodents and water fowl, but also a range of plants such as grasses, nuts, wheat, oats, rye, barley, water chestnuts, and water lilies. —Tom Gavin, EverydayHealth.com, 13 Jan. 2025

The starch grains originate from various plant sources, such as acorns, grass grains, water chestnuts, yellow water lily rhizomes (a type of underground plant stem) and legume seeds. —Newsweek, 8 Jan. 2025

Remnants of water chestnuts and the ground roots of water lilies also indicate that the hominids didn’t limit their gleaning to land. —Paul Smaglik, Discover Magazine, 8 Jan. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1597, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

water chestnut

noun

: a whitish crunchy vegetable used especially in Chinese cooking that is the peeled underground stem of an Asian sedge

also : the sedge or its underground stem