A beansprout is the little pale shoot that grows from a bean seed and is eaten as a vegetable. It is crunchy, watery, and mild. In cooking you usually meet them in handfuls, so people often say beansprouts in the plural. The common kitchen kind is grown from mung beans: thin and white with a tiny yellow tip. Soybean sprouts are thicker and are a different dish. You add them late to a stir-fry so they stay crisp, or eat them in soup and salads. Though actually English also writes this as two words, bean sprout, and both are normal; the one-word form is just the dictionary’s packing of the same thing.