pastrami

American  

[puh-strah-mee] / pəˈstrɑ mi /

noun

pastramis plural

1. a brisket of beef that has been cured in a mixture of garlic, peppercorns, sugar, coriander seeds, etc., then smoked before cooking.

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pastrami British  

/ pəˈstrɑːmɪ /

noun

1. highly seasoned smoked beef, esp prepared from a shoulder cut

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• pastramis
  plural

Etymology

Origin of pastrami

1935–40; < Yiddish pastrame < Romanian pastramă pressed, cured meat; a Balkanism of uncertain origin (compare Modern Greek pastramâs, Serbo-Croatian pȁstrma ), perhaps ultimately < Turkish pastιrma, taken as variant of bastιrma, equivalent to bastιr-, causative stem of bas- press, squeeze + -ma verbal noun suffix

Explanation

Pastrami is a thin-sliced kind of sandwich meat you can find at any good deli. You might order a pastrami sandwich on rye bread for lunch every Tuesday. Pastrami is a type of dark, smoked beef that is typically shaved very thin, and piled between sandwich bread, usually rye, and occasionally topped with coleslaw. A great place to sample pastrami is at a traditional Jewish delicatessen — and the word itself comes from the Yiddish pastrame, which is probably rooted in the Turkish basdirma, "dried meat."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pastrami pastramis

Viking god Erling Haaland gave a hallelujah to the briny magic of a Katz’s pastrami.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026

He’s the brainchild behind my favorite dish, the Fuhgeddaboudit pizza, which is made with pastrami, pickles and mustard.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2026

The pastrami sandwiches at Katz’s Delicatessen are iconic, but Meg Ryan’s impassioned exclamations at the deli in “When Harry Met Sally” may be even more iconic.

From Salon ● Dec. 17, 2025

Mr. Margolick recounts Caesar eating four pastrami sandwiches in one sitting.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025

My foster parents think I was starving in Cuba, and so they like to take me to this restaurant called Wolfie’s, where we eat enormous pastrami sandwiches and bowls of matzoh ball soup.

From "Across So Many Seas" by Ruth Behar

Also yes: A few yards farther down are house-cured pastramis, pickles and hams, all manner of vegetable preparations, and an extensive array of house-smoked fish and their condiments.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2016

New York's heritage includes the vast waves of Jewish immigration to the Lower East Side, where rye bread is the chosen sheath for Reubens and hot pastramis.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 1, 2014