delicatessen food

3.1

Ready-to-eat meats, cheeses, and salads sold at a deli

noun
/ˌdɛlɪkəˈtɛsən fud/

: comida de delicatessen

For the picnic, we brought a selection of delicatessen food, including cheeses and sliced meats.

Examples

Many people enjoy delicatessen food like fresh salads and gourmet sandwiches for lunch.
The party platter featured various types of delicatessen food, perfect for a quick and satisfying meal.
A working-class woman's use of ready-to-eat delicatessen food often functioned as a mark of laziness in reformers' writings.

Academic text (2014)

Synonyms

delicatessen

vsdelicatessen food

1 4.6

Prepared foods like cooked meats, cheeses, and salads sold ready to eat

focuses on those items themselves rather than where they are sold

Surface Forms

delicatessen food singular

delicatessen foods plural

Morphology

delicatessen + food

The meaning 'ready-to-eat food sold in a delicatessen' is directly derivable from combining 'delicatessen' (ready-to-eat items like meats and salads) with 'food' (substance consumed). This straightforward noun+noun composition follows regular English compounding and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily understand it.

Etymology

Delicatessen food comes from the German word delikatessen, which meant 'delicacies' or special foods. Shops called delicatessens sold ready-to-eat meats, cheeses and salads, so delicatessen food today means those ready-to-eat specialty foods.