Meaning

2 senses
  1. (UK)A yellow pickle relish made from cauliflower, vegetable marrow, and other vegetables, pickled with vinegar, salt, sugar, and spiced with mustard, turmeric, and other spices.

  2. (US)A pickle, typically on a base of chopped green (unripe) tomatoes, but sometimes finely-chopped pickles, and possibly including other vegetables.

More definitions
  • relish of chopped pickled cucumbers and green peppers and onion

Origin

Unknown. First use appears c. 1758. Presumably a variant of pickle, which itself is from M

Unknown. First use appears c. 1758. Presumably a variant of pickle, which itself is from Middle English pekille (“spicy sauce served with meat or fish”) or pikel, from Middle Dutch pekel (“brine”); perhaps influenced by dialectal variants. Alternatively, it may be related to paco lilla (“ginger-spiced pickle”), from the 18th century British cookbook The Art of Cookery (1747–1843; e.g., 1805 edition) by Hannah Glasse (1708–1770), also referred to as Indian pickles, which suggests an Indo-Aryan source; compare mulligatawny, of Tamil origin, which also features turmeric prominently, and curry, of Tamil or Middle English origin (or a blend). Not etymologically related to Piccadilly.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: piccalillis

Synonyms

3 synonyms
(UK)A yellow pickle relish made from cauliflower, vegetable…:chowchowIndia relish
(US)A pickle, typically on a base of chopped green tomatoes,…:relish

Word family

3 related words

See also

neighbours in the dictionary

Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.

piccalilli — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto