eggplant
n.a large vegetable with smooth, dark purple skin and white flesh inside. In British English, people call this an aubergine.
n.the edible, usually purple, fruit of the plant Solanum melongena, widely used as a vegetable in cooking. Often used as a slang icon in digital communication to represent male anatomy.
“I am cooking sliced eggplant with olive oil and garlic.”
“The chef prepared a traditional moussaka by layering fried eggplant with seasoned meat and a creamy sauce.”
“While the deep purple variety is most common in Western supermarkets, different cultivars of eggplant range in shape from small spheres to long, thin cylinders and in color from white to green.”
Countable when referring to the whole fruit or the plant; uncountable when referring to it as a food substance.
From egg + plant, originally applied only to the white-colored, egg-shaped variety.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.