A variety of celery plant grown for its thick, bulbous root that is eaten as a vegetable; also called celery root or knob celery.
From 'celery' (ultimately from Greek 'selinon') combined with the suffix '-iac' (meaning a person or thing affected by something). The suffix choice is unusual; 'celeriac' literally suggests 'one affected by celery' and was coined in 19th-century English.
Celeriac is proof that vegetables can trick you—it looks like a weird, ugly root, but it's actually the answer to why celery seems incomplete; medieval and Renaissance farmers decided the root was the real prize and bred it that way.
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