Pilaf

noun

noun ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A dish made by browning grain, typically rice, in oil and then cooking it with a seasoned broth, to which meat and/or vegetables may be added. countable, uncountable

    "My spirits rose as I passed among the tents and savored the aroma of steaming pots of pilaf and the long skewers of shashlyk roasting over the open fires."

  2. 2
    rice cooked in well-seasoned broth with onions or celery and usually poultry or game or shellfish and sometimes tomatoes wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
pilaffpilaupilaw

Example

More examples

"Not only did I eat pilaf, but I also ate kebabs."

Etymology

From Ottoman Turkish پلاو (modern Turkish pilav), from Classical Persian پلاو (pilāw), from Hindi पुलाव (pulāv)/Urdu پُلاؤ (pulāo), from Sanskrit पुलाक (pulāka), which is probably of Dravidian origin. Akin to Tamil புழுக்கு (puḻukku, “cooked rice”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.