Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A fruit or vegetable, especially a grape leaf or cabbage leaf, cooked with a filling of ground meat, herbs, or rice.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A Turkish dish made of vine-leaves, egg-plant, gourds, etc., stuffed with rice and chopped meat.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Cookery) a dish composed of well-seasoned rice (with nuts or currants of minced lamb) simmered or braised in stock, stuffed into tomatoes or green peppers, or wrapped in grape leaves; -- popular in the near east.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of a family of stuffed vegetable dishes.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Turkish dolma and Modern Greek dolmás, dolmád- (Modern Greek, from Turkish), from verbal noun of Turkish dolmak, to fill, be full.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Turkish dolma from dolmak ("to get full, be filled"). Thus, the word literally means “stuffed thing”.

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Examples

  • (In Turkey, they call this kind of conveyance a "dolma" - "stuffed" or "packed" - but they are minibuses, as they are elsewhere in the world.)

    Tijuana, a taste of Mexico 2005

  • (In Turkey, they call this kind of conveyance a "dolma" - "stuffed" or "packed" - but they are minibuses, as they are elsewhere in the world.)

    Tijuana, a taste of Mexico 2005

  • Each empire imposed its influence on the country’s cuisine, which is why stuffed vegetables are called dolma in Iraq, as they are in Greece and Turkey, and not mehshi, the Arabic word for “stuffed”; it’s why Iraqis drink out of glassat, the Arabized plural of the English word “glass,” and Iraqi pickles are sometimes called by the Farsi word turshi.

    Day of Honey Annia Ciezadlo 2011

  • Each empire imposed its influence on the country’s cuisine, which is why stuffed vegetables are called dolma in Iraq, as they are in Greece and Turkey, and not mehshi, the Arabic word for “stuffed”; it’s why Iraqis drink out of glassat, the Arabized plural of the English word “glass,” and Iraqi pickles are sometimes called by the Farsi word turshi.

    Day of Honey Annia Ciezadlo 2011

  • "This is called dolma," says Nahla, motioning to a platter heaped with onions, eggplant and tomatoes stuffed with aromatic rice.

    deseretnews.com - Utah 2009

  • Armenia’s New Year holiday ”Nor Tari” has finally passed, and it can best be described as a dolma-filled, house-crawling, insomnia-enducing holiday adventure of epic proportions.

    Kyle’s Journey in Armenia » 2007 » January 2007

  • Armenia’s New Year holiday ”Nor Tari” has finally passed, and it can best be described as a dolma-filled, house-crawling, insomnia-enducing holiday adventure of epic proportions.

    Kyle’s Journey in Armenia » Blog Archive » Where to Begin: Nor Tari 2007

  • And * I* had to look up "dolma" because I had experienced "dolmades" and thought there must have been a difference!

    The Life Without School Community Blog 2008

  • After we had demolished as much of the mountain of dolma as we could, after there was no more tebsi to be consumed, Mohamad and I looked at each other and said something about leaving.

    Day of Honey Annia Ciezadlo 2011

  • Starting the night before, she had made an enormous dolma, the characteristically Iraqi mixture of stuffed vegetables—not just grape leaves and zucchini, but also tomatoes, green peppers, eggplant, and even onions and swiss chard; all stuffed with fragrant rice and meat and stewed together for hours in a pot with a layer of lamb chops at the bottom.

    Day of Honey Annia Ciezadlo 2011

Comments

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  • Stuffed vegetables, such as grape leaves. Plural "dolmades"; citation at taramasalata.

    August 17, 2008

  • In Persian, it's dolmeh. I make them quite often (when tender grape leaves are plentiful).

    August 17, 2008

  • Yay, me too. Unfortunately I can't get grape leaves where I am at the moment. Mmmm, dolmadaki!

    August 17, 2008