ketchup

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“
You then had a glass of tomato juice for free since the ketchup was always on the table free of charge!

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Definitions (5)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A condiment consisting of a thick, smooth-textured, spicy sauce usually made from tomatoes.
  2. Word History
    The word ketchup exemplifies the types of modifications that can take place in borrowing—both of words and substances. The source of our word ketchup may be the Malay word kēchap, possibly taken into Malay from the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. Kēchap, like ketchup, was a sauce, but one without tomatoes; rather, it contained fish brine, herbs, and spices. Sailors seem to have brought the sauce to Europe, where it was made with locally available ingredients such as the juice of mushrooms or walnuts. At some unknown point, when the juice of tomatoes was first used, ketchup as we know it was born. But it is important to realize that in the 18th and 19th centuries ketchup was a generic term for sauces whose only common ingredient was vinegar. The word is first recorded in English in 1690 in the form catchup, in 1711 in the form ketchup, and in 1730 in the form catsup. All three spelling variants of this foreign borrowing remain current.

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Examples (50)

  • Tomato ketchup, and the face was a mask, a wooden mask. —  The Japanese Corpse - Janwillem van de Wetering - Grijpstra-De Gier 05
  • Tess dredged a fry through her own mixture of barbecue sauce, ketchup, and horseradish, another reason she loved Roy's. —  Lippman, Laura - [Tess Monaghan 02] - Charm City
  • Cold cheeseburger wrapped in wax paper, complete with mustard, ketchup, and onions. —  AHMM,March2008
  • Ok, I guess it'd be better to think the ketchup was "half-full", but the point was that each person is one-half of the marriage, not one half of a person, and that both components are equal. —  RutlandHerald.com
  • All I could taste was ketchup, a trace of mustard, tons of sodium and an overwhelming charcoal aftertaste —  Homepage | The Forum | Fargo, ND
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Etymologies (1)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Probably Malay kicap, fish sauce, possibly from Chinese (Cantonese) kē-chap, equivalent to Chinese (Mandarin) qié, eggplant + Chinese (Mandarin) zhī, sap, gravy.
 

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/ˈkætʃˈup, kɛtʃup/
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