chop suey

English

Etymology

From Cantonese 雜碎／杂碎 (zaap⁶ seoi³, “mixed and broken”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtʃɒp ˈsuːi/, (rare) /ˈtsɒp ˈsuːi/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

chop suey (countable and uncountable, plural chop sueys)

1. (US, Philippines, Australia) A stir-fried vegetable dish, served with pieces of beef or pork in a semi-thick sauce, and often soy sauce.
   • 1926 December 16, The Telegraph, Brisbane, page 20, column 7:

     On the walls about were the hieroglyphic markings of the craft. Across this scene wafted the pungent fragrance of chop suey, dim sims and other delicacies in course of preparation for the funeral feast.

   • 1929 February 10, The Sunday Times, Sydney, page 26, column 7:

     There was feasting and joy from Shanghai to the Wall,
     What with dim-sims, chop-suey and crackers and all,
     And the donor of these, by the hook of my crook.
     Was Chiang Ki-Konglong, the Mandarin Cook.

   • 2007 June 18, Nina Zagat, Tim Zagat, “Meanwhile: Eating Beyond Sichuan”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     Without access to key ingredients from their homeland, Chinese immigrants in the United States working on the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s improvised dishes like chow mein and chop suey that nobody back in their native land would have recognized.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

2. (Canada and British) Steamed bean sprouts served in a semi-thick sauce, and mixed with a choice of meat and/or vegetables.
   • 2011, Clarissa Dickson Wright, A History of English Food, London: Random House Books, →ISBN, page 455:

     To someone who had spent part of their youth visiting a grandmother in Singapore, a lot of the food they served didn’t seem particularly Chinese to me: the flavour of chop suey with its chicken or pork or prawns, or chow mein, or the omeletty foo yung, never seemed quite right.

Derived terms

• American chop suey

Translations

Cantonese dish

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Cebuano: tsapsoy, sapsoy
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 雜碎 / 杂碎 (zaap⁶ seoi³)

  Hokkien: 雜碎 / 杂碎 (cha̍p-chhùi), 雜碎 / 杂碎 (cha̍p-chhùi), 雜累碎 / 杂累碎 (cha̍p-lùi-chhù), 雜 / 杂 (zh-min-nan) (cha̍p)

  Mandarin: 雜碎 / 杂碎 (zh) (zásuì)

• Dutch: tjaptjoi (nl) m
• Esperanto: ĉopsuo
• Finnish: chop suey
• French: chop suey (fr) m
• Galician: chop suey (gl) m
• German: Chop Suey (de)
• Hungarian: kínai rizseshús
• Indonesian: capcai (id)
• Italian: piatto cantonese con carne e verdure m, chop suey m
• Japanese: チャプスイ (chapusui)
• Macedonian: чоп суи (čop sui)
• Malay: capcai
• Marathi: चॉपसुई f (cŏpsuī)
• Persian: please add this translation if you can
• Polish: chop suey (pl) n
• Portuguese: chop suey m
• Russian: чоп-суэ́й m or n (čop-suéj), кита́йское рагу́ n (kitájskoje ragú)
• Samoan: sapasui
• Tagalog: tsapsuy, sapsuy

Portuguese

Noun

chop suey m (uncountable)

1. chop suey (a Cantonese vegetable dish)

Further reading

• “chop suey”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026