Sparerib

//ˌspɛəˈɹɪb// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A cut of meat including the rib bones.

    "SPARERIBS AND SAUERKRAUT […] Place sauerkraut in greased baking dish and sprinkle with brown sugar. Brown spareribs under broiler heat, season and place on sauerkraut."

  2. 2
    a cut of pork ribs with much of the meat trimmed off wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
ribspareribspare

Example

More examples

"SPARERIBS AND SAUERKRAUT […] Place sauerkraut in greased baking dish and sprinkle with brown sugar. Brown spareribs under broiler heat, season and place on sauerkraut."

Etymology

Probably borrowed from Low German ribbesper, from Middle Low German ribbespêr (“spare-ribs”), from ribbe (“rib”) + sper (“spear; spit”), from Old Saxon ribbi + sper, from Proto-Germanic *ribją + *speru. The word was transposed, with the first element becoming confused with English spare due to folk-etymology. Compare also English ribspare (rare, modern uses dialectal).

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