Yogurt

How to spell yogurt

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce yogurt

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does yogurt mean?

1. nounA thick, slightly sour food made from milk fermented by added bacteria, often eaten plain or flavoured with fruit.

Yogurt in a sentence

• She stirred a spoonful of honey into the plain yogurt.

• The lunchbox held a banana and a pot of strawberry yogurt.

Where does yogurt come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word came into English directly from the Turkish yoğurt, which referred to the same thick, fermented milk product that has been a staple across Anatolia and the Balkans for centuries. The Turkish noun is linked to the old verb yoğurmak, meaning 'to knead' or 'to thicken', a fitting description of how the milk is curdled and set. English speakers first recorded the word in the early 1600s, when travellers and writers describing the diet of the Ottoman Empire tried to render the unfamiliar Turkish sound in Roman letters. Because that soft Turkish letter 'ğ' has no neat English equivalent, the spelling wobbled for centuries, producing forms such as yoghurt and yoghourt alongside yogurt. The version without the silent 'h', yogurt, became the common modern spelling once the food entered mainstream Western shops in the twentieth century, though the optional 'h' is exactly what still trips writers up.

How the word is built

• yogurt (whole word borrowed from Turkish yoğurt; no native English prefix or suffix to break down)

British and American spelling

Yogurt is the American spelling. British English spells it yoghourt.