a vegetable with green leaves around a large hard white head of flowers 花椰菜;菜花 Topics Foodc1Word Originlate 16th cent.: from obsolete French chou fleuri ‘flowered cabbage’, probably from Italian cavolfiore or modern Latin cauliflora. The original English form colieflorie or cole-flory had its first element influenced by ‘cole’, the brassica type of plant, to which it belongs; the second element was influenced by flower during the 17th cent.