General Tso's chicken
- noun
- /ˈdʒɛnərəl soʊz ˈtʃɪkɪn/
- US
:
pollo General Tso
- I love General Tso's chicken!
Examples
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She learned to make General Tso's chicken at home after trying it at a local takeout place.
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Have you tried General Tso's chicken at the new restaurant?
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Whenever we go out for Chinese food, my brother always orders General Tso's chicken.
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The restaurant's General Tso's chicken was perfectly crispy and had just the right amount of spice.
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I ordered General Tso's chicken to enjoy with my friends at the Chinese restaurant on Friday night.
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After a long week, nothing satisfies like a plate of General Tso's chicken and fried rice.
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On the menu, General Tso's chicken was marked as the restaurant's most popular dish among customers.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase signals a chicken dish named after a person: a learner who knows 'general' and 'chicken' and recognizes 'Tso's' as a name can infer it refers to a chicken associated with a (General) Tso. However, the specific culinary meaning—sweet, spicy, deep-fried Chinese‑American preparation—is not derivable from the constituents, so only part of the meaning is predictable.
Etymology
The dish General Tso's chicken is named after a real Chinese general, General Tso, but the food itself was made much later by chefs in Taiwan and the United States. One popular story says chefs used his name to make the dish sound traditional, so today General Tso's chicken means 'a sweet and spicy fried chicken' served in many Chinese-American restaurants.
