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ketchup

UK/ˈkɛt͡ʃ.əp/US/ˈkɛt͡ʃ.əp/
nounA2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #3,326 of 15,258leans spoken

Ketchup is the sweet red sauce that goes on fries. A bottle of ketchup, tomato ketchup, squeeze the ketchup.

It is a non-Newtonian fluid, which is why it will not pour and then comes out all at once — shaking or tapping thins it briefly. The original had no tomato in it at all: the word probably comes from a fermented fish sauce of southern China, by way of Malay.

Kim Holger Kelting · CC BY 4.0

Definitions of ketchup

  1. 1nounketchupA sweet red tomato sauce.A2+

    “The kids wanted ketchup on everything, even their scrambled eggs.”

    • Said"Pass the ketchup, please. I know, I know."
    • WrittenA dried tide of ketchup marked the edge of every plate on the table.
    • UsedKeep ketchup in the fridge once opened and use it within a couple of months.
    • ContrastKetchup, not sauce in general. Ketchup is one sauce: cold, red and from a bottle. sauce →
    • Not thisTomato paste is not ketchup. Ketchup is sweet and ready; paste is thick, sharp and for cooking.
    • Exchange"Ketchup or mayonnaise?""Both, and don't judge me."

    Patterntomato ketchup · a bottle / squeeze / dollop of ketchup · chips with ketchup · ketchup on + noun

ketchup is a sauce.

Remember it

It probably began as a fish sauce in the Far East, and the word came with it. Only later did it turn into the sweet red sauce we put on chips.

hooks ontofish

Where it comes from

Ketchup probably comes from a southern Chinese name for a fermented fish sauce, by way of Malay kecap.

  1. nan-hbl

    膎汁 — fish sauce

  2. Malay

    kecap

  3. English, today

    ketchup

Borrowed from Malay kecap. unknown, but probably ultimately from nan-hbl 膎汁 (“fish sauce”) via Malay kecap ~ kicap “any dark clear sauce from soy, fish etc”, though the precise path is unclear – there are related words in various Chinese languages. Various other theories exist – see Ketchup: Etymology for extended discussion. First appeared in English in the late 17th century in reference to a Southeast Asian sauce encountered by British traders and sailors. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that it was commonly used in the 18th century to refer to a variety of similar sauces with varying ingredients—"anchovies, mushrooms, walnuts, and oysters being particularly popular"—but by the late 19th century the current tomato ketchup became the most popular form.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the Kitchen

Practise this word

ketchup in the wild

  • Heinz ranked first in ketchup in the US with a market share in excess of 50%; the Ore-Ida label held 46% of the frozen potato sector in 2003.

    Heinz

  • Tomato ketchup is sometimes used in other sauces and dressings, such as Thousand Island dressing and Marie Rose sauce, or as a general cooking ingredient.

    Ketchup

  • Major brands producing curry ketchup include Zeisner, Heinz, Hela, Oliehoorn, and Knorr.

    Curry ketchup

  • Mushroom ketchup is a style of ketchup that is prepared with mushrooms as its primary ingredient.

    Mushroom ketchup

  • Originally, ketchup in the British Isles was prepared with mushrooms as a primary ingredient, instead of tomato, the main ingredient in most modern preparations of ketchup.

    Mushroom ketchup

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.