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sesame

nounattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈsɛsəmi//
  • United Kingdom//ˈsɛzəmi//
  • United States//ˈsɛsəmi//
  • //ˈsɛsəm//
  • //ˈsiːsəm//

A tropical Asian plant (Sesamum indicum) bearing small flat seeds used as food and as a source of oil.

noun

  1. 1

    A tropical Asian plant (Sesamum indicum) bearing small flat seeds used as food and as a source of oil.

  2. 2

    The seed of this plant.

    First, marinate the tofu. In a bowl, whisk the kecap manis, chilli sauce, and sesame oil together. Cut the tofu into strips about 1cm thick, mix gently (so it doesn't break) with the marinade and leave in the fridge for half an hour.

Etymology

From late Middle English sisamie, from Latin sīsamum, sēsamum, from Ancient Greek σήσαμον (sḗsamon), from Aramaic שושמא (šūššmā), shortening of שומשומא (šumššumā), from Akkadian 𒊭𒈦𒌑𒈬 (šamaššammū, “oil plant”), compound of 𒉌𒄑 (šaman, “oil”) and 𒌑 (šammum, “plant”). The modern pronunciation is perhaps influenced by (transliterations of) Greek σησάμη (sisámi). Doublet of sesamum.

Forms

plural
sesames
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).