mincemeat

4 4.7

A mix of chopped dried fruit, spices, and sometimes meat used as a pie filling

noun
/ˈmɪnˌsmiːt/

: carne picada

For dessert, we enjoyed a slice of warm mincemeat pie topped with ice cream.
mincemeat pie
make mincemeat

But do you know what it tastes like cold mincemeat?

Examples

She is quite broad-minded for this town and didn't mind the brandy in the mincemeat in the least.

Fiction book (1996)
"A good idea," Scott said when Ellen told him, then he asked why she was making mincemeat pies the way her mother did.

Fiction book (1998)
Her brother, who is in direct sales cookware, will be here, and I am providing the mincemeat pie.

Fiction book (1996)
The women bustled, trying to find space in the kitchen to fit just one more mincemeat pie and another gallon of cider.

Fiction book (2000)
She baked a delicious mincemeat pie filled with spices and dried fruits.
The traditional holiday feast included a special mincemeat pie made from a family recipe.

Surface Forms

mincemeat singular

mincemeats plural

Morphology

mincemeat = mince + meat (semi-transparent) = mince + meat

The components 'mince' + 'meat' transparently suggest chopped meat, but the modern culinary sense often refers to a sweet fruit mixture (sometimes without meat), so the relation is only partially predictive for learners.

Etymology

Mincemeat comes from the word mince, meaning 'to cut into very small pieces', and meat, meaning 'food from animals'. At first it meant chopped meat used in pies, but people later mixed in dried fruit and spices, so today mincemeat usually means a sweet fruit filling (often with no actual meat).