barbecue.
A fireplace or pit for grilling food, typically used outdoors and traditionally employing hot charcoal as the heating medium.
Meaning & usage
A fireplace or pit for grilling food, typically used outdoors and traditionally employing hot charcoal as the heating medium.
We cooked our food on the barbecue.
A meal or event highlighted by food cooked in such an apparatus.
We're having a barbecue on Saturday, and you're invited.
Meat, especially pork or beef, which has been cooked in such an apparatus (i.e. smoked over indirect heat from high-smoke fuels) and then chopped up or shredded.
She ordered a plate of barbecue with a side of slaw.
A hog, ox, or other large animal roasted or broiled whole for a feast.
A floor on which coffee beans are sun-dried.
A framework of sticks.
Where this word comes from
From mid-17th century. Borrowed from Spanish barbacoa, from Taíno barbakoa (“framework of sticks”), the raised wooden structure the natives used to either sleep on or cure meat. Originally “meal of roasted meat or fish”. Doublet of balbacua and barbacoa.
To cook food on a barbecue; to smoke food over indirect heat from high-smoke fuels.
To grill.
To kill or destroy using high heat or fire; to cook; to burn.
Where this word comes from
From mid-17th century. Borrowed from Spanish barbacoa, from Taíno barbakoa (“framework of sticks”), the raised wooden structure the natives used to either sleep on or cure meat. Originally “meal of roasted meat or fish”. Doublet of balbacua and barbacoa.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.