salsa

[ sahl-suh; Spanish sahl-sah ]
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noun
  1. Mexican Cooking. a hot sauce of tomatoes and chile peppers with onion and garlic, and sometimes seasoned with cumin or fresh cilantro, often used as a condiment or served as a dip.

  2. a lively, vigorous type of contemporary Latin American popular music, blending predominantly Cuban rhythms with elements of jazz, rock, and soul music.

  1. a ballroom dance of Puerto Rican origin, performed to this music, similar to the mambo, but faster with the accent on the first beat instead of the second beat of each measure.

verb (used without object)
  1. to dance the salsa.

Origin of salsa

1
First recorded in 1845–50, and in 1970–75 for defs. 2, 3; from Latin American Spanish, Spanish: literally, “sauce”; the dance and music were probably so called originally because of the mixture of styles

Words Nearby salsa

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How to use salsa in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for salsa

salsa

/ (ˈsælsə) /


noun
  1. a type of Latin American big-band dance music

  2. a dance performed to this kind of music

  1. Mexican cookery a spicy tomato-based sauce

Origin of salsa

1
C20: from Spanish: sauce

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012