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.
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
You will be quickly disabused of this idea once you sink your teeth into Barrios’s oxtail barbacoa, a luxuriant mass of meat braised in beef stock infused with onion, chiles, bay leaf and other aromatics.
From Washington Post • Sep. 12, 2022
Cut into four thick slices, the pizzacoa features layers of crispy tortillas, melted cheese, and what feels like a pound of tender, shredded barbacoa beef.
From Seattle Times • May 21, 2022
It was the traditional Taino Indian method of cooking and preserving meat, barbacoa, that had been adopted intact by the boucaniers decades before.
From Caribbee by Hoover, Thomas
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.
