a style of cooking meat by applying low heat for a long time, especially over an open fire or in a below-ground pit: the meat is often served shredded or chopped, with tortillas, in burritos, etc.
meat that has been cooked slowly on low heat, especially over an open fire or in a below-ground pit.
an Indigenous people of Ecuador and Colombia.
the language of the Barbacoa.
First recorded in 1945–50; from Spanish; see barbecue ( def. )
First recorded in 1885–90
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Many dishes now elevated to restaurant darling status — barbacoa, ratatouille, pasta e fagioli — were born from exactly those constraints.
From Salon ● May 12, 2026
The goat barbacoa tacos are served every Friday and Saturday starting at 11 a.m.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 28, 2024
Diners sit on sidewalks and feast on dishes as simple as gelatin in plastic cups and as complex as goat barbacoa baked for hours in a backyard pit.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2023
“Barbecue” comes from barbacoa, a word in the Arawakan language of the Caribbean for a wooden frame used for sleeping on and for drying food, Tschann writes.
From New York Times ● Mar. 7, 2023
"And then you would sell your . . . barbacoa and hides here on Tortuga?"
From Caribbee by Thomas Hoover
Barbacoa, specifically South Texas beef-head barbacoa, is a major influence on contemporary Texas barbecue.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 12, 2019
Barbacoa serves the same restorative morning-after function as menudo or birria.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 29, 2017
Most valuable dish: Barbacoa burrito with rice, fajita veggies, pinto beans, fresh tomato salsa, cheese, guacamole and sour cream.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 3, 2016
The Barbacoa and Pastor have been popular, and for the vegetarian there’s the Verdura, featuring daily fresh vegetables.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 8, 2015
They continued their march the fifth day, and about noon came unto a place called Barbacoa.
From The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century by Clarence Henry Haring
On the fifth day they reached Barbacoas; but still no place presented to their view either man, animal, or any kind of provisions whatever.
From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 by John Rudd
The Peruvians obtained many emeralds from the barren district of Atacama, and in the times of the Conquest there were quarries on the River of Emeralds near Barbacoas.
From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 11, No. 27, June, 1873 by Various
After resting some days in the old capital of Quito, our travellers proceeded to the small port of Barbacoas, on the west coast of Equador; and thence took passage for Panama.
From Bruin The Grand Bear Hunt by Johann Baptist Zwecker
Why may there not be an alluvial auriferous soil to the east of the Cordilleras, as there is to the west, in the Sonoro, at Choco, and at Barbacoas?
From Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 2 by Alexander von Humboldt
An ambush had been laid at Barbacoas, but the Spaniards had left the place, after sweeping it as bare as Torna Munni.
From On the Spanish Main Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. by John Masefield
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.
