tuna fish salad
- noun
- US
- She prepared a creamy tuna fish salad with diced onions and pickles for the picnic.
I make the Matthew Mcconaughey's tuna fish salad.
- I make the Matthew Mcconaughey's tuna fish salad.
Examples
-
l make a mean tuna fish salad sandwich.
-
I make excellent tuna fish salad.
Fiction book (1990) -
He decides to drive to the market and pick up stuff for a tuna fish salad, a safe bet at any rate.
Fiction book (2000) -
Tuna fish salad on white bread with mayonnaise, a Tab and a couple of Twinkies.
-
For lunch, I had a delicious tuna fish salad mixed with crunchy celery and mayonnaise.
-
They enjoyed a hearty tuna fish salad sandwich while sitting in the park.
Synonyms
A cold dish of small pieces of vegetables often served with a dressing
A salad of chopped canned tuna mixed with mayonnaise and vegetables
How Filling
- US
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'tuna' (a type of fish) + 'fish' (reinforcing the protein source) + 'salad' (a prepared cold dish) yields a salad made from tuna fish. This is a straightforward noun-noun composition found cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents can readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Tuna fish salad gets its name from the simple idea of putting tuna, the fish, into a salad with mayonnaise and chopped vegetables, so the main ingredient is clear. So it now means 'a salad made mainly with canned tuna'.