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Glite Dictionary
sparerib

sparerib

4 4.0
A cut of pork ribs with little meat left often cooked on a grill
  • noun
  • /ˈspɛrərɪb/
translation icon : costilla
  • We enjoyed sweet and spicy spareribs at the summer barbecue last weekend.
  • pork spareribs
  • barbecued spareribs
  • roasted spareribs

Examples

  • We'd eat the $2.98 combo plates: fried rice, spareribs, and a third thing, then go get a pack of "Wahnstons" from the cashier.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • It can be cooked with all kinds of food, but respondents mainly reported using it with fish or when steaming pork spareribs.

    Academic text (2001)

  • And just one sparerib, okay?

    Phat Girlz (2006)

  • I want a great big mess of spareribs.

    The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

  • The pork spareribs had also spent a little time on the same grill as the ham.

    Blog text (30)

  • Sweet and sour pork, barbecue spareribs...

    Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

  • They have great spareribs here, but lousy lighting.

    Year of the Dragon (1985)

  • I'd like spareribs, French fries... ...and a big old juicy cheeseburger on the side with a chocolate malt!

    Stir Crazy (1980)

  • It had been years since Frieda had last tasted three-spice chicken, and nearly a decade since she'd dared to order barbecued spareribs.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • The chef marinated the spareribs overnight to enhance their flavor before grilling them.

Synonyms

spareribs
vssparerib
  • US
2.8

Pieces of pork ribs cooked and served, often with barbecue sauce

is the raw trimmed cut mainly bone with a little meat

Surface Forms

sparerib singular
spareribs plural

Morphology

sparerib = spare + rib (semi-transparent) = spare + rib

The components 'spare' + 'rib' are clear, but the culinary sense 'a specific cut of pork' is a conventionalized meat‑cut term that may not be fully predictable from the parts.

Etymology

The word sparerib comes from two simple words, spare and rib: spare means 'extra' or 'left over' and rib means the bone. So a sparerib is the name for a rib that was 'left over' or thin on meat, which is why it refers to the pork cut with mostly bone and some attached meat used for cooking.