margarine

UK/ˌmɑː.d͡ʒəˈɹiːn/US/ˈmɑɹ.d͡ʒəˌɹin/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: margarines

Margarine is the pale spread sold as a cheaper stand-in for butter. Vegetable oil, hardened and coloured.

It was invented in France in 1869 for a competition to find a butter substitute for the army and the poor. Dairy interests fought it for a century, and several American states once required it to be dyed pink so nobody could mistake it for butter. The pronunciation with a soft g is standard despite the spelling. Modern spreads are largely free of the trans fats that gave it a bad name.

Definitions of margarine

1nounmargarineA butter substitute made from vegetable oils.C2
“He always kept margarine for baking and butter for toast.”

Where it comes from

Margarine is named after a pearl. The name was built on margaric acid, from Greek margaron, a pearl, for the pearly sheen of the fat.

Ancient Greek
μάργαρον — pearl
French
margarine
English, today
margarine

Built from

acide margarique · French — margaric acid
glycérine · French — glycerine

French margarine, from acide margarique (“margaric acid”), from Ancient Greek μάργαρον (“pearl”), in allusion to its pearly lustre, with the suffix -ine, influenced by glycérine (“glycerine”). French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul named margaric acid after its pearl-like crystallization.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 15 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

margarine in the wild

Although originally made from animal fats, most margarine consumed today is made from vegetable oil.
Margarine
The name was later shortened to margarine, or sometimes oleo (particularly in the Deep South region of the United States).
Margarine
Margarine Unie was the dominant producer of margarine in the UK.
Margarine Unie
Becel is a brand of margarine produced by Dutch company Flora Food Group.
Becel
In the late nineteenth century he also started margarine factories in Germany and Belgium.
Antonius Johannes Jurgens

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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.

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