ketchup.
Ellipsis of tomato ketchup (“a tomato-vinegar-based sauce, sometimes containing spices, onion or garlic, and (especially in the US) sweeteners”).
Meaning & usage
Ellipsis of tomato ketchup (“a tomato-vinegar-based sauce, sometimes containing spices, onion or garlic, and (especially in the US) sweeteners”).
tomato ketchup
This diner serves ketchup in red bottles, and mustard in yellow ones.
Such a sauce more generally (not necessarily based on tomatoes, but with mushrooms, fish, etc.). This is the older meaning.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Hokkien 膎汁 (kê-chiap)der. Malay kecapbor.? English ketchup Uncertain, but probably ultimately from Hokkien 膎汁 (kê-chiap, “fish sauce”) via Malay kecap ~ kicap “any dark clear sauce from soy, fish etc”, though the precise path is unclear – there are related words in various Chinese languages. Various other theories exist – see Ketchup: Etymology for extended discussion. First appeared in English in the late 17th century in reference to a Southeast Asian sauce encountered by British traders and sailors. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that it was commonly used in the 18th century to refer to a variety of similar sauces with varying ingredients—"anchovies, mushrooms, walnuts, and oysters being particularly popular"—but by the late 19th century the current tomato ketchup became the most popular form. Catsup (earlier catchup) is an alternative Anglicization, still in use in the U.S., though it is now somewhat rare.
To cover with ketchup.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Hokkien 膎汁 (kê-chiap)der. Malay kecapbor.? English ketchup Uncertain, but probably ultimately from Hokkien 膎汁 (kê-chiap, “fish sauce”) via Malay kecap ~ kicap “any dark clear sauce from soy, fish etc”, though the precise path is unclear – there are related words in various Chinese languages. Various other theories exist – see Ketchup: Etymology for extended discussion. First appeared in English in the late 17th century in reference to a Southeast Asian sauce encountered by British traders and sailors. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that it was commonly used in the 18th century to refer to a variety of similar sauces with varying ingredients—"anchovies, mushrooms, walnuts, and oysters being particularly popular"—but by the late 19th century the current tomato ketchup became the most popular form. Catsup (earlier catchup) is an alternative Anglicization, still in use in the U.S., though it is now somewhat rare.
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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.