Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A pickled relish made of various chopped vegetables and hot spices.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A kind of pickle made up of various vegetables, chopped and seasoned with mustard and pungent spices.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A pickle of various vegetables with pungent species, -- originally made in the East Indies.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun UK A yellow pickle made from cauliflower, vegetable marrow, and other vegetables, pickled with vinegar, salt, sugar, and spiced with mustard, turmeric, and other spices.
  • noun US A pickle, typically on a base of chopped green (unripe) tomatoes, but sometimes finely-chopped gherkins, and possibly including other vegetables.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun relish of chopped pickled cucumbers and green peppers and onion

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably alteration of pickle.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Unknown, 1845, presumably variant of pickle, which itself is from Middle English pekille ("spicy sauce served with meat or fish") or pikel, from Middle Dutch pekel ("brine").

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Examples

  • Foodwise, there are various good quality sandwiches (eg. home-cured honey roast ham; deep-fried cod cheek with lettuce and salad cream) available until 6pm, and, outside of that, bar snacks of the ploughman's (£7.50), potted crab, pork pie and homemade piccalilli variety.

    West London's top 10 budget eats 2011

  • Its food sorting warehouse in Salisbury has the nostalgic feel of a 1980s harvest festival – you might find a crate of something unhelpful, such as piccalilli, next to a huge stash of longlife milk.

    Bonuses in the City, but elsewhere in the UK foodbanks are booming | Zoe Williams 2011

  • The last of the year's runner beans, a bit stringy now for serving as a vegetable, make cracking chutney if you treat them as you might a cauliflower, and make a piccalilli-style preserve with them.

    Nigel Slater's runner bean chutney and simple pear tart recipes Nigel Slater 2010

  • "You had to import Bird's custard, Branston pickle and piccalilli ... you had to buy PG Tips and then deal with the French milk."

    The Stones and the true story of Exile on Main St 2010

  • Each fall he looks forward to making old-fashioned piccalilli from the peppers and green tomatoes that keep coming until a hard frost.

    One Big Table Molly O’Neill 2010

  • Galton produced a ham hock terrine with piccalilli and toasted spelt bread and Sat countered with ham, egg and peas.

    Archive 2007-07-01 2007

  • Mr. Farmerie tops thin, pink strips of raw Tasmanian sea trout with shichimi (a Japanese blend of chilies and spices) and a crunchy English piccalilli made from diced cauliflower, cucumber, onions and vinegar, and seasoned with chili, ginger and turmeric.

    T.G.I.M., Really! 2007

  • Galton produced a ham hock terrine with piccalilli and toasted spelt bread and Sat countered with ham, egg and peas.

    At My Table 2007

  • "He put it all on Hodgepile, " Jamie told me, loading piccalilli onto a slice of pie.

    A Breath of Snow and Ashes Gabaldon, Diana 2005

  • There were small canning jars of deep amethyst-purple grape preserves, strawberry jam as dark and rich as garnets, and emerald green piccalilli.

    Moon Dance Mariah Stewart 1999

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