Acar

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A spiced dish of vegetables or fruit preserved in vinegar or brine, common in Malay and Indonesian cuisine
2. A tangy pickle of sliced vegetables or fruit seasoned with turmeric and chilli, served in Malay and Indonesian meals
3. A preserved relish of cucumber, carrot or pineapple soaked in vinegar and spices, eaten as a side dish in Southeast Asia

Etymology: "Acar" arrived in English from Malay and Indonesian, where it names a dish of pickled vegetables, often seasoned with chilli, turmeric and other spices. The word belongs to a family of related forms that travelled along the same trade routes: "achar", "atchara" and "atsara" all descend from the same source, and each reached English by a slightly different path, so they count as doublets. Linguists call such pairs doublets when one word entered a language twice through separate channels. The surprise here is how far the word has travelled from its origin in a specific culinary tradition. Pickling spread widely across South and Southeast Asia, and the terms followed the goods and the people who traded and cooked them. Its presence in English is a reminder that the vocabulary of food often moves faster than the food itself, carried by merchants, colonial officials and cooks long before dictionaries took notice.