mangelwurzel

• mangel-wurzel
• mangle-wurzel

From German Mangold (“chard”) + Wurzel (“root”), with the first part reinterpreted as Mangel, whence the archaic English name "root of scarcity".

mangelwurzel (plural mangelwurzels)

1. A root vegetable, variety of Beta vulgaris, cultivated chiefly as cattle feed.
   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 11, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     I have not written to my beloved Amelia for these many weeks past, for what news was there to tell of the sayings and doings at Humdrum Hall, as I have christened it; and what do you care whether the turnip crop is good or bad; whether the fat pig weighed thirteen stone or fourteen; and whether the beasts thrive well upon mangelwurzel?

   • 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:

     Wheat and barley, oats and hay,
     Clover, beans, and mangel-wurzels

• (root vegetable): mangold, mangold wurzel, root of scarcity (archaic)

• beet
• chard

• mangle-wurzel