Pastrami
//pəˈstɹɑːmi// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A seasoned smoked cut of beef, traditionally made from a navel cut. countable, uncountable
- 2 highly seasoned cut of smoked beef wordnet
Etymology
Borrowed from Yiddish פּאַסטראַמע (pastrame), from Romanian pastramă, from Ottoman Turkish باصدرمه (modern Turkish pastırma), a variation of bastırma (“dried meat”), from root bas- (“to press”). It is sometimes claimed that the origin of the Turkish word is Greek παστώνω (pastóno, “I salt”), from Ancient Greek παστός (pastós, “sprinkled with salt, salted”). The English spelling ending in -mi is probably from the influence of salami.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.