Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
spareribs

spareribs

2.8
Pieces of pork ribs cooked and served, often with barbecue sauce
  • noun
  • /ˈspɛrˌrɪbz/
  • US
translation icon : costillas
  • The restaurant is famous for its delicious spareribs that fall off the bone.

Examples

  • We ordered a plate of spareribs smothered in sweet barbecue sauce for dinner.

  • At the cookout, everyone enjoyed the tender spareribs that were grilled to perfection.

  • It was called Barbecue Bob and the Spareribs.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • "Walk on," said Barbecue Bob, the head of Matthew's blues band, Barbecue Bob and the Spareribs.

    Fiction book (1996)

Synonyms

sparerib
vsspareribs
4 4.0

A cut of pork ribs with little meat left often cooked on a grill

are served cooked with sauce rather than being a raw pork cut
barbecued spareribs
vsspareribs
2.1

Pork ribs cooked with a spicy sauce, often over a grill

are prepared and served more generally, not limited to spicy roasted ones

Compounds

barbecued spareribs
2.1

Pork ribs cooked with a spicy sauce, often over a grill

Surface Forms

spareribs singular
spareribs plural

Morphology

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

The components 'spare' + 'rib' are formally visible, but the culinary meaning refers to a specific cut/preparation rather than simply 'extra ribs', so the exact sense may not be fully derivable by learners.

Etymology

The word spareribs is made from spare and ribs. A helpful way to remember it is that spare meant 'extra' or 'left over', so these were ribs people saved for cooking, and that saved/extra idea became the name for this cut of meat.