liberty cabbage

liberty cabbage noun: sauerkraut.

Noun (1)

liberty cabbage (uncountable)

(US, historical, nationalist) Sauerkraut.
- The largest quantity of vegetables prepared was Liberty cabbage, 661 barrels. If these barrels were placed lengthwise in a row, they would reach a distance of almost one-half a mile.1918, The Institution Quarterly (Illinois), volume 9, issue 1, 31 March 1918, page 286
- "Liberty cabbage," made in Germany and there still known as sauerkraut, has been served at many American army messes during the week, five carloads of the edible having been left behind by the withdrawing German army.1918 November 30, “Liberty Cabbage”, in The New York Times

Liberty cabbage (uncountable)

We noticed the monstrous cabbage weighing eighteen pounds, but this was nothing new to us as in the past few days we have made thirty barrels of liberty cabbage.1919 October, Joseph Hermann, Milton Dentzler, “Greenhouse”, in The Industrial Enterprise, volume 26, number 10, page 11:
Guinea Fowls with Liberty Cabbage [...] Clean and disjoint guinea fowls.1919, Marion Harris Neil, The Thrift Cook Book, page 109:
September.—Made 8 hhds. of Liberty Cabbage; housed onions, tomatoes, canteloupe, watermelons; began the apple picking; supplied the house with vegetables and fruits.1919, New York Legislative Documents: One Hundred and Forty-Second Session, 1919, volume 39, issues 105–110, page 60
Dinner: Corned beef, gravy, potatoes, coffee, liberty cabbage, bread, [...]1919, State of New York Handbook of the State Hospital Commission, page 186:

Coined during the First World War as a substitute for the word sauerkraut, which had been borrowed from German around 1600.

What does liberty cabbage mean?: Liberty cabbage means sauerkraut.
How do you use liberty cabbage in a sentence?: We noticed the monstrous cabbage weighing eighteen pounds, but this was nothing new to us as in the past few days we have made thirty barrels of liberty cabbage.
What part of speech is liberty cabbage?: Liberty cabbage is a noun.

Adapted from Wiktionary: liberty cabbage (page history and authors); Liberty cabbage (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-liberty cabbage.wav.

Cite this entry: “liberty cabbage.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/liberty_cabbage. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.