Rakija
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A strong distilled alcoholic beverage made from various fruits, varieties of which (such as slivovitz) are found across the Balkans and the Mediterranean. countable, uncountable
"As in most Balkan countries rakija (pronounced 'RAK-eeyah') is the national drink of Macedonia. While rakija in the surrounding countries is made mainly from fruits such as plums (slivovice) or pears (viljemovka), Macedonian rakija is exclusively made from grapes."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"As in most Balkan countries rakija (pronounced 'RAK-eeyah') is the national drink of Macedonia. While rakija in the surrounding countries is made mainly from fruits such as plums (slivovice) or pears (viljemovka), Macedonian rakija is exclusively made from grapes."
Etymology
Borrowed from Serbo-Croatian rakija/ракија, from Ottoman Turkish راقی (rakı), assumed from Arabic عَرَق (ʕaraq, “sweat; wine”) (as rakija or wine vapor drops are similar to drops of sweat). Doublet of raki.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.