caviar. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

caviar

SYLLABICATION:	cav·i·ar
PRONUNCIATION:	kv-är, käv-
VARIANT FORMS:	also cav·i·are
NOUN:	The roe of a large fish, especially sturgeon, that is salted, seasoned, and eaten as a delicacy or relish.
ETYMOLOGY:	Alteration of caviarie (probably from obsolete Italian caviari, pl. of caviaro) or from French caviare, both from Turkish havyar, from Persian khvyr; akin to khyah, egg, from Middle Persian khyak. See awi- in Appendix I.
WORD HISTORY:	Although caviar might seem to be something quintessentially Russian, the word caviar is not, the native Russian term being ikra. Caviar first came into English in the 16th century, probably by way of French and Italian, which borrowed it from Turkish havyar. The source of the Turkish word is apparently an Iranian dialectal form related to the Persian word for “egg,” khyah, and this in turn goes back to the same Indo-European root that gives us the English words egg and oval. This rather exotic etymology is appropriate to a substance that is not to everyone's taste, giving rise to Shakespeare's famous phrase, “ 'twas caviary to the general,” the general public, that is.


The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.