Burrito
nounA Mexican dish of a soft flour tortilla wrapped around a filling such as beans, rice, meat, or cheese.
How to spell burrito
7 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce burrito
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does burrito mean?
- nounA Mexican dish of a soft flour tortilla wrapped around a filling such as beans, rice, meat, or cheese.
Burrito in a sentence
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She ordered a chicken burrito with extra guacamole for lunch.
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The food truck sells a breakfast burrito packed with eggs and beans.
Where does burrito come from?
Language of origin: Spanish
The word comes directly from Mexican Spanish burrito, which literally means 'little donkey', a diminutive of burro 'donkey'. The burro itself traces back to Latin burricus, a small horse or pony. There are several explanations for the food name: one popular idea is that a rolled tortilla resembles the bedrolls and packs that working donkeys carried, while another suggests it nods to the way the dish bundles many fillings together as a donkey carries a load. English adopted the word in the twentieth century as Mexican and Tex-Mex cooking spread northward, and it became firmly established in American menus by the mid 1900s. The double 'r' belongs to the Spanish original (the rolled rr sound) and is the main spelling trap, since the single-r 'burito' looks just as plausible to an English eye.
How the word is built
- burr- (from Spanish burro: donkey)
- -ito (diminutive suffix: little)
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