Sushi is the Japanese rolls of rice, seaweed, and raw fish. Order sushi, a sushi bar, make sushi.
The word names the vinegared rice rather than the fish, which is why sushi with no fish in it is still sushi and raw fish on its own is sashimi. It began as a preservation method: fish was packed in fermenting rice and the rice thrown away. Note that the name comes from an old word meaning sour.
1nounsushiA Japanese dish of vinegared rice with fish or vegetables.
“We had sushi with soy sauce and ginger at the Japanese restaurant.”
sushi is a dish.
Japanese sushi comes from an archaic form of an adjective meaning sour, from the fermented rice the fish was preserved in.
Japanese
寿司
English, today
sushi
Borrowed from Japanese 寿司. Japanese - 寿司, ultimately from archaic conjugation 酸し of modern adjective 酸い.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA