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trotter

trotter

2 8.3
The foot of a pig or sheep cooked and eaten as food
  • noun
  • /ˈtrɑːtər/
translation icon : pata de cerdo
  • In order to prepare the traditional dish, she cooked the pig's trotter slowly to enhance the flavor.
  • pig trotters

Examples

  • Gammon and trotters!

  • I enjoyed a hearty meal of braised pig trotter served with vegetables.

  • With a tape, the butcher sealed the hole in the pig's trotter.

    Fiction book (2002)
  • If trotters are good enough for Joel Robuchon, they are good enough for me.

    Blog text (14)
  • At the restaurant St. John in London recently, we were just finishing a lovely late lunch of braised beef cheek and fried pork trotters.

    Blog text (2)
  • A Sauterne will be served with the Devil's food,' Bel flashes her teeth, and with the pigs' trotters, a Moselle.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • At the restaurant, the special was a savory stew made with pig trotters and herbs.

Synonyms

pigs' feet
vstrotter
4 5.5

The feet of a pig cooked and eaten, often pickled, stewed, or set in jelly

is broader, covering feet of both pigs and sheep prepared to eat

Compounds

A person who often travels for work or study

Surface Forms

trotter singular
trotters plural

Morphology

trotter = trot (opaque) = trot + er

The word is historically based on 'trot' + '-er', but the sense 'pig or sheep foot used as food' is a specialized and not readily guessable extension.

Etymology

The word trotter for a pig or sheep foot probably comes from the verb trot, which means 'to move with quick steps'. A trotter was simply the foot used for trotting, and that name later came to mean the cooked foot you eat.