gravy
gravy Lexical Profile
gravy Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A culinary sauce made primarily from the natural juices that run from meat or vegetables during cooking, typically thickened with wheat flour or cornstarch.
"She poured a generous amount of hot turkey gravy over her mashed potatoes."
An unexpected or unearned benefit, profit, or bonus, often obtained without additional effort.
"Once the base production costs are covered, any extra revenue from merchandise sales is pure gravy."
American A rich, slow-cooked tomato sauce containing meat, commonly served over pasta.
"Every Sunday morning, his grandmother would begin simmering a large pot of meatballs and gravy for the family dinner."
Word Nuance & Usage
In Italian-American communities, 'gravy' strictly refers to a slow-cooked tomato sauce containing meat, which can cause confusion with the standard English definition of a brown sauce made from meat drippings.
• Rhymes for gravy
Word Origin & Etymology
From Middle English 'gravé', likely derived from Old French 'grané' (a spiced sauce or stew), which suffered a historical scribal error where the 'n' was misread as a 'v' or 'u'.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.