tripe
Americannoun
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the first and second divisions of the stomach of a ruminant, especially oxen, sheep, or goats, used as food.
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Slang. something, especially speech or writing, that is false or worthless; rubbish.
noun
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the stomach lining of an ox, cow, or other ruminant, prepared for cooking
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informal something silly; rubbish
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archaic (plural) intestines; belly
Etymology
Origin of tripe
First recorded in 1250–1300; 1885–90 tripe for def. 2; Middle English, from Old French, perhaps from Vulgar Latin trippa (unrecorded), of expressive origin
Explanation
Tripe is a kind of meat that consists of an animal's stomach lining. It may sound gross, but your tasty breakfast sausage may include a bit of tripe. While tripe isn't commonly found on most restaurant menus, it turns up more often than you might think. Breakfast sausages usually include beef and pork tripe, and international dishes from Korean stews to Mexican tacos to Eritrean stir-fries can all contain tripe. In Old French, tripe meant "guts" or "entrails used as food," and in the 1500s it came to informally mean "worthless person." Today, tripe is also "any nonsense or rubbish," particularly if it's written or spoken.
Vocabulary lists containing tripe
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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Grendel
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The Taming of the Shrew
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Tripe stew, nachos, even “mac” and cheese arrive with ridged, cut-up fried dough standing in for potatoes, tortilla chips, or pasta.
From Salon • Dec. 6, 2025
In 1857, Tripe became the photographer for the Madras Presidency - a former province of British India - and photographed sites at Srirangam, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Pudukkottai, and Thanjavur.
From BBC • Aug. 31, 2024
The comal setup benefits the meat, too: Tripe becomes soft from boiling and crisp from contact with the steel, all of it fragrant from its bath in the bubbling fat.
From New York Times • Sep. 5, 2019
Tripe, or beef intestine, may not be to everyone’s liking, but are particularly nice when cooked to the point of being slightly crunchy on the edges, with a pleasing chew.
From Los Angeles Times • May 23, 2019
Tripe read a paper of much interest on some relations of meteorological phenomena to health.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
