paprika

UK/pəˈpɹiːkə/US/pəˈpɹiːkə/

nounB1+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,099 of 15,258neutral

Paprika is a red powder ground from sweet dried peppers. A spoonful of paprika, smoked paprika, dust with paprika.

Hungary is the country most associated with it, and Hungarian cooking distinguishes many grades from sweet to hot. Smoked paprika from Spain is dried over oak and tastes nothing like the sweet kind. It burns easily, so it goes into a pan off the heat.

Definitions of paprika

1nounpaprikaA red powder ground from sweet dried peppers.B1+
“Sprinkle a little paprika over the eggs to add some colour.”

paprika is a spice.

Where it comes from

Hungarian paprika came from a Serbo-Croatian word for pepper, which goes back through Latin piper to Greek peperi.

Ancient Greek
πέπερι — pepper
Latin
piper
Proto-Slavic
*pьpьrь
Serbo-Croatian
pàprika
Hungarian
paprika
English, today
paprika

Hungarian paprika, from Serbo-Croatian pàprika, from pȁpar, from Proto-Slavic pьpьrь, from Latin piper, from Ancient Greek πέπερι (“pepper”), from inc; compare Sanskrit पिप्पलि (“long pepper”). Akin to paprikash.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Food & Drink

Practise this word

paprika in the wild

A mild version of the spice, Hungarian sweet paprika, is commonly used as an alternative.
Hungarian cuisine
Earlier versions of goulash did not include paprika, as it was not introduced to Europe until the 16th century.
Goulash
The trade in paprika expanded from the Iberian Peninsula to Africa and Asia and ultimately reached central Europe through the Balkans.
Paprika
European cuisines in which paprika is a frequent and major ingredient include those of Hungary, Spain and Portugal; it is also found in many French and German dishes.
Paprika
A folk item of Hungarian cuisine, it is a bright-red hot dish prepared with generous amounts of hot paprika and carp or mixed river fish.
Fisherman's soup

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.

Related words

the piper family

pepper

paprika — used about once every 4,196 pages · #9,099 · point at the bar for the others

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