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Glite Dictionary
crab cocktail

crab cocktail

1 3.2
Cold cooked crab meat served with a sour or spicy sauce as a starter
  • noun
translation icon : cóctel de cangrejo
  • For appetizers, I recommend the crab cocktail paired with a zesty dipping sauce.

Examples

  • At the restaurant, I enjoyed a delicious crab cocktail topped with fresh herbs and a tangy sauce.

  • Let's see... you had the salmon and the crab cocktail.

    Valentine (2001)

  • Crab cocktails and grilled steaks?

    Fiction book (2000)

  • There's crab cocktail, porterhouse steak, and cheesecake.

    Partners (1982)

  • Sometimes he sneaks me a crab cocktail at the end of the night because he knows I love it: the tender jumbo lump crabmeat lightly dressed with lemon and parsley, a bit of cocktail sauce on the side.

    Academic text (2007)

  • The seafood platter included a refreshing crab cocktail served with a spicy cocktail sauce.

Synonyms

cocktail
vscrab cocktail
52 4.1

A small first course of seafood or fruit often served with a spicy sauce

focuses on one cooked seafood ingredient rather than a mixture

Surface Forms

crab cocktail singular
crab cocktails plural

Morphology

crab + cocktail

The meaning 'a dish of crabmeat served with a tangy or spicy sauce' is directly derivable from combining 'crab' (the seafood) with 'cocktail' (a seafood appetizer served with sauce). This noun–noun food naming pattern (e.g. 'shrimp cocktail') is common and cross-linguistically familiar, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily understand the expression.

Etymology

The dish name crab cocktail comes from serving cold crab meat in a small 'cocktail glass' with a tangy sauce, like a tiny drink in a glass. That's why crab cocktail now means a cold crab 'starter' served with sauce.