tempura
/tɛmˈpu.ɹə/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.49 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A Japanese dish made by deep-frying vegetables, seafood, or other foods in a light batter.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
Etymology
Borrowed from Japanese 天(てん)麩(ぷ)羅(ら) (tenpura), from Portuguese, ultimately from Latin. Different dictionaries link two different original terms: * Portuguese tempero (“seasoning”) or tempera (“he/she/it seasons; season!”), third-person present singular or imperative tense of temperar (“to season, to temper”), from Latin temperare (“to mix, to temper”). * Portuguese têmpora (“Ember days”), from Latin tempora, plural of tempus (“time; period”). When Portuguese explorers (mostly Jesuit missionaries) arrived in Japan, they abstained from eating beef, pork, and poultry during the Ember days, a Catholic series of holidays. Instead, they ate fried vegetables and fish. This was the first contact of the Japanese with fried food, and since then they began associating the Portuguese word têmpora (which they pronounced tenpura) with such food.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: -, tempero, têmpora, tempora
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /tɛmˈpu.ɹə/
- British English: /ˈtɛmpʊɹə/