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Glite Dictionary
egg roll

egg roll

18 1.4
A Chinese fried food made by wrapping meat and vegetables in thin dough
  • noun
  • /ˈɛɡ roʊl/
  • US
translation icon : rollito de primavera
  • For dinner, we enjoyed homemade egg rolls filled with cabbage and shrimp.
  • egg roll wrapper
  • soup and egg rolls
  • eat egg rolls

Examples

  • Rachel licked the grease from the egg roll off her fingers.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • The plates hold chicken chow mein, rice, and egg rolls.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • I see you chose this egg roll.

    Boogie (2021)

  • But now you have to go get egg rolls with me.

    Ma (2019)

  • Thanks for the egg rolls, kid.

    Men in Black (1997)

  • I ordered some egg rolls.

    Find Me Guilty (2006)

  • You want more sweet sauce for your egg roll, honey, you got it.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • I made egg rolls and coffee cake for snacks and dinner.

    Blog text (13)

  • I got an egg roll and shared an order of sesame chicken with my little sister.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Why don't you go get a nice container of egg rolls?

    Dirty Harry (1971)

Synonyms

spring roll
vsegg roll
10 2.5

A small fried snack filled with vegetables and sometimes meat, often served as an appetizer

includes both chopped vegetables and meat consistently in a deep fried thin pastry

How Crispy

spring roll
10 2.5
egg roll
  • US
18 1.4
soft roll
1 1.3

Surface Forms

egg roll singular
egg rolls plural

Morphology

egg + roll

The components 'egg' and 'roll' give a clear cue that this is a rolled food item and that egg might be involved, so a B1 learner would likely infer it is some kind of rolled food. However, the specific culinary meaning (a Chinese-style deep-fried wrapper often not primarily defined by egg) is conventional and not fully predictable from the parts, so the relation is only partial.

Etymology

Egg roll may come from early Chinese-American cooks who used beaten egg to seal the thin dough of the roll, making the outside shiny and golden when it was fried. So, the name stuck to the fried vegetable-and-meat 'roll' we eat today.