Meaning

noun plant having a large slender white bulb and flat overlapping dark green leaves; used in cooking; believed derived from the wild Allium ampeloprasum

noun a young onion before the bulb has enlarged; eaten in salads

originFrom Middle English scaloun (“shallot”), from Anglo-Norman scalun (variant of Old French eschaloigne), from a Proto-Romance derivation of Vulgar Latin *escalonia, from Latin Ascalonius (in caepa (“onion”) Ascalonius, "shallot"), from Ascalo (“Ascalon”), from Ancient Greek Ἀσκάλων (Askálōn, “Ascalon, an ancient port city in the Levant”), borrowed from Biblical Hebrew אַשְׁקְלוֹן (ʾašqəlôn).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0