Definitions

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

  • noun The pungent fresh or dried fruit of any of several cultivated varieties of capsicum, used especially as a flavoring in cooking.
  • noun A stew made of meat or beans (or both) and usually tomatoes, spiced with chili peppers or chili powder.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See chilli.

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

  • noun A kind of red pepper. See capsicum

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

  • noun The pungent/spicy fresh or dried fruit of any of several cultivated varieties of capsicum peppers, used especially to add heat, or as a flavouring in cooking; associated with Mexican, Indian, and Tex-Mex cuisine.
  • noun A dish made with this fruit and other ingredients, such as beans and beef.

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

  • noun ground beef and chili peppers or chili powder often with tomatoes and kidney beans
  • noun very hot and finely tapering pepper of special pungency

Etymologies

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

[Spanish chile, from Nahuatl chīlli.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • from Nahuatl 'xilli'

    October 2, 2010

  • "... After Columbus first returned with a sample, the plant spread so fast around the world that many Europeans assumed it was of Asian origin. Paprika put down roots from Spain to Hungary. Pepper, for which there had long been no substitute, could now be outgunned."

    --Jack Turner, _Spice: The History of a Temptation_ (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 300

    December 6, 2016