Link Centre Dictionary

gravy

UK/ˈɡɹɛjvɪj/ US/ˈɡɹeɪvi/ fairly common informal

noun

1.

basically the juices that drip from cooking meats

2.

a sudden happening that brings good fortune (as a sudden opportunity to make money)

  • “the demand for testing has created a boom for those unregulated laboratories where boxes of specimen jars are processed like an assembly line”
Synonyms

Origin

From Middle English gravey, greavie, gravy; probably from greaves, graves (“the sediment of melted tallow”), or from Old French grave, a claimed misspelling of grané (“stew, spice”), from grain (“spice”). Sense of "pasta sauce" apparently seems to be from Italian dialect, especially Calabrian, differentiating tomato puree (salsa (“sauce”)) from cooked tomato sauce (sugo).

Phrases

  • baby gravy
  • biscuits and gravy
  • bull gravy
  • bulldog gravy
  • country gravy
  • good gravy
  • gravy boat
  • Gravy SEAL

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.