escargot

noun

es·​car·​got ˌe-ˌskär-ˈgō How to pronounce escargot (audio)
plural escargots ˌe-ˌskär-ˈgō(z) How to pronounce escargot (audio)
: a snail prepared for use as food

Examples of escargot in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The impressive dinner menu features many French favorites, including oysters and escargots, to mouthwatering mains like a classic bouillabaisse, côte de boeuf for two, gnocchi Parisienne and duck confit cassoulet. Sandra MacGregor, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2024 The menu includes mussels, escargots, duck confit and roasted rack of lamb and the backdrop includes much by which to be entertained. Amanda Hancock, The Courier-Journal, 23 Feb. 2024 That translates into a large menu with classic dishes like escargots, octopus carpaccio, bouillabaisse, and Dover sole à la Meunière. Tori Latham, Robb Report, 25 Sep. 2023 Flambée, a French restaurant in Bogotá popular with diplomats and businesspeople, was for weeks selling homemade Dijon for around $7 a jar, roughly twice the usual price, alongside its lavish offerings of escargot and pâté. Genevieve Glatsky, BostonGlobe.com, 10 June 2023 Chez Napoleon Since 1960, this Hell’s Kitchen OG has been serving up delicious French classics like escargots, onion soup gratinée , steak au poivre, beef bourguignon, bouillabaisse, and dessert soufflés to New Yorkers looking for a taste of Paris in Gotham. William Li, Town & Country, 9 June 2023 The menu at Le Select hewed to Parisian classics like onion soup, escargots, steak au poivre, and duck breast à l’orange, but Eater noted that reviews of the restaurant were middling at best, and the first chef de cuisine left shortly after the opening. Tori Latham, Robb Report, 10 May 2023 Stop by Edwins for a salade niçoise, escargots, frog legs, and plenty of fromage, of course. Alex Schechter, Travel + Leisure, 25 Mar. 2023 Bring on the escargots, foie gras, sashimi and sushi, oysters and caviar! Emily Heil, Washington Post, 28 Feb. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'escargot.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French, "snail," going back to Middle French escargol, borrowed from an Old Occitan antecedent of Occitan (17th-century Toulouse) escaragol, (Marseille) escaragóou, (Béarn) escargolh, alteration (perhaps by association with Old Occitan escaravat "scarab beetle" and other descendants of Latin scarabaeus scarab) of Old Occitan carcol "spiral staircase," Occitan (Rhône mouth) kalagou, karagǫu "snail," with parallel forms in Ibero-Romance (Spanish caracol "snail, gastropod, shell of a gastropod, caracole", Portuguese caracol "snail, gastropod," Galician caracó, Catalan caragol "gastropod, something with a spiral shape, helix"), of uncertain origin

Note: The Occitan forms can be explained as metathetic variants of kakaláw "snail, empty nutshell" (Bas-Dauphiné, i.e., western Dauphiné), cacaláou "snail" (Provence), cagarol (Béziers), apparently based on *cocŭlia "shell of a mollusk, nut or egg" blended with another word (see cockle entry 2). However, there is no counterpart to the unmetathesized words in Ibero-Romance, so one would have to accept that caracol, etc., were loanwords from Occitan, a somewhat unusual migration given that this sort of expressive vocabulary would more likely be native and perhaps substratal. It has been hypothesized that the word with which *cocŭlia has been blended is Greek káchlēx "shingle, gravel in a riverbed," though this word has otherwise apparently left no other trace in Romance. Another suggestion is an expressive and/or pre-Romance element *cacar- "shell of a mollusk," an extension of a root *cac(c)-/*coc(c)-, or perhaps more likely *car- "shell." (See J. Hubschmid, "Die Stämme *kar(r)- und *kurr- im Iberoromanischen, Baskischen und Inselkeltischen," Romance Philology, vol. 13, no. 1 [August, 1959], p. 39; J. Coromines, Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, s.v. caracol.)

First Known Use

circa 1892, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of escargot was circa 1892

Dictionary Entries Near escargot

Cite this Entry

“Escargot.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/escargot. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

escargot

noun
es·​car·​got ˌes-ˌkär-ˈgō How to pronounce escargot (audio)
plural escargots -ˈgō(z) How to pronounce escargot (audio)
: a snail prepared for use as food

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