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choy sum

choy sum noun: a Chinese vegetable, a variety of Brassica rapa parachinensis subspecies, similar to bok choy but slimmer, with smooth green leaves and pale green stems, and clusters of flowers on the tips of the inner shoots.

choy sum: a Chinese vegetable, a variety of Brassica rapa parachinensis subspecies, similar to bok choy but...
Image: Anna Frodesiak, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

choy sum (uncountable)

  1. A Chinese vegetable, a variety of Brassica rapa parachinensis subspecies, similar to bok choy but slimmer, with smooth green leaves and pale green stems, and clusters of flowers on the tips of the inner shoots.
    • Added the chopped choy sum and stir it to release any excess water as steam. As the choy sum loses its water, add the chili and a good pinch of salt.2013, Fuchsia Dunlop, “Stir-fried chopped choy sum”, in Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking, W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 178
    Synonyms:
    Chinese flowering cabbage, caixin, yu choy, yau choy

choy sum meaning in Indonesian and Vietnamese

choy sum in Indonesian

vegetable
sawi hijau, caisim

choy sum in Vietnamese

vegetable
cải ngồng

Synonyms of choy sum

Forms of choy sum

alternative formchoi sum

Origin of choy sum

Borrowed from Cantonese 菜心 (coi3 sam1, literally “vegetable heart”). Doublet of caixin.

Questions about choy sum

What does choy sum mean?
Choy sum means a Chinese vegetable, a variety of Brassica rapa parachinensis subspecies, similar to bok choy but slimmer, with smooth green leaves and pale green stems, and clusters of flowers on the tips of the inner shoots.
What is choy sum in Indonesian?
Choy sum in Indonesian is sawi hijau, caisim. See Choy sum meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is choy sum?
Choy sum is a noun.

Words near choy sum in the dictionary

  1. chowts
  2. Chowul
  3. Choy
  4. choy root
  5. choy roots
  6. choy sum
  7. choyce
  8. choyces
  9. choyroot
  10. choyroots
  11. Choys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: choy sum (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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