tripe
Americannoun
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the first and second divisions of the stomach of a ruminant, especially oxen, sheep, or goats, used as food.
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Slang. something, especially speech or writing, that is false or worthless; rubbish.
noun
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the stomach lining of an ox, cow, or other ruminant, prepared for cooking
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informal something silly; rubbish
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archaic (plural) intestines; belly
Etymology
Origin of tripe
First recorded in 1250–1300; 1885–90 tripe for def. 2; Middle English, from Old French, perhaps from Vulgar Latin trippa (unrecorded), of expressive origin
Explanation
Tripe is a kind of meat that consists of an animal's stomach lining. It may sound gross, but your tasty breakfast sausage may include a bit of tripe. While tripe isn't commonly found on most restaurant menus, it turns up more often than you might think. Breakfast sausages usually include beef and pork tripe, and international dishes from Korean stews to Mexican tacos to Eritrean stir-fries can all contain tripe. In Old French, tripe meant "guts" or "entrails used as food," and in the 1500s it came to informally mean "worthless person." Today, tripe is also "any nonsense or rubbish," particularly if it's written or spoken.
Vocabulary lists containing tripe
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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Grendel
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The Taming of the Shrew
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the end, I never fed Bingo raw meaty bones, liver or tripe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 28, 2026
Juanita’s Foods is the nation’s top seller of canned menudo — a traditional Mexican soup made from cow tripe — boasting more than 95% market share.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2025
When singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards wrote a gentle ballad, When Tears Go By, they dismissed it as a "piece of tripe".
From BBC ● Jan. 30, 2025
This is a stew popular in Madrid which includes blood sausage and some very unfortunate looking and smelling tripe.
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2023
They shuddered at the tripe and the chitterlings.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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.
