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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

kebab.

A dish usually made of cut meat roasted on a skewer or spit, especially one based on Middle Eastern or South Asian cuisine.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/kəˈbæb/Australia/kɪˈbæb/Received-Pronunciation/kɪˈbɑːb//kəˈbɑb/General-American
  1. A dish usually made of cut meat roasted on a skewer or spit, especially one based on Middle Eastern or South Asian cuisine. A hand-held dish consisting of slices of meat or fish roasted on an upright skewer, usually mixed with fresh vegetables and sauces and served in flatbread, especially a doner kebab.

    Australia · UK
  2. A dish usually made of cut meat roasted on a skewer or spit, especially one based on Middle Eastern or South Asian cuisine. A shish kebab or any other food on a skewer.

    US
  3. A dish usually made of cut meat roasted on a skewer or spit, especially one based on Middle Eastern or South Asian cuisine. A dish made from shaped minced meat, usually grilled on a skewer but sometimes formed into a patty and fried or baked.

    India
  4. A restaurant that sells kebabs

    Let's go to the kebab after the club.
  5. The outward growing portions of a shish kebab structure.

  6. A Muslim, usually of southern European, Middle Eastern, or North African descent.

    ethnic · offensive · slang · slur
  7. The vulva.

    UK · slang · vulgar
  8. A menu icon of three vertical dots.

Where this word comes from

Ultimately from Arabic كَبَاب (kabāb), partly through Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), Punjabi, Persian and Turkish kebap. Doublet of cevapi. See the Arabic entry for more.

verb/kəˈbæb/Australia/kɪˈbæb/Received-Pronunciation/kɪˈbɑːb//kəˈbɑb/General-American
  1. To roast in the style of a kebab.

    transitive
  2. To stab or skewer.

    slang · transitive
Where this word comes from

Ultimately from Arabic كَبَاب (kabāb), partly through Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), Punjabi, Persian and Turkish kebap. Doublet of cevapi. See the Arabic entry for more.

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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.