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

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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

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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

“I started working here when I was 3 years old,” Castaneda says with a grin before turning to the hunk of hot pastrami he’s placed on a cutting board.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2026

Writer Nora Ephron wasn’t embarrassed when in 2002 she declared in the New Yorker, “The hot pastrami sandwich served at Langer’s Delicatessen in downtown Los Angeles is the finest hot pastrami sandwich in the world.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2026

His short rib pastrami suya at New York’s Tatiana has become one of the restaurant’s signature dishes.

From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2026

While popular variations use turkey, roast beef, pastrami and other deli meats, the original version on offer at the 99-year-old Town Hall Delicatessen is still made with ham and beef tongue.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

We went into Ella’s Kosher Deli and Ice Cream Parlor and ate pastrami sandwiches and kosher dill pickles, followed by raspberry ice cream.

From "Walk Two Moons" by Sharon Creech

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

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