chow mein

Etymology

It is borrowed from Chinese 炒麵 (chǎomiàn, “stir-fried noodles”),^[2][3] or a cognate dialect form,^[4][5] from 炒 (chǎo, “to fry”) and 麵 (miàn, “noodles; flour, dough”).^[4][6][7] The American Heritage Dictionary takes it from a Chinese dialect form close to Cantonese 炒麵 (caau2 min6),^[5] and Collins calls it Cantonese, a variant of the Mandarin word.^[8] The OED and Barnhart translate it literally as "fried flour".^[9][10] Etymonline notes that the 1890 record describes it as a Korean dish and that the early spelling “chow mien” reflects a Korean pronunciation.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A dish of stir-fried noodles: 1890, as “chow mien”, in American English.^[7] Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1898,^[6] and the OED and Barnhart to 1903.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that most Chinese food words came into English after the Second World War, but chow mein belongs to an earlier layer, brought by Chinese speakers on the west coast of the United States in the early 20th century.^[11][7] It became the typical Chinese-American dish in the 1920s and 1930s.^[7] In Chinese it means simply fried noodles, though the dish usually also has chopped meat and vegetables.^[11] Modern restaurants often serve soft noodles as lo mein (1960) and keep the name chow mein for noodles fried crisp, a distinction not seen in the 19th-century uses.^[7]

Timeline

• 1890 – “chow mien”, a dish of stir-fried noodles.^[7]
• 1898 – a stew of meat and vegetables served with fried noodles.^[6]
• 1903 – fried noodles served with a thick sauce of meat and vegetables.^[9][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A Chinese or Chinese-American dish of fried noodles served with shredded meat or shrimp, mushrooms and vegetables in a sauce.^[8][6][2][9]
2. Fried noodles.^[6][9]

Related words

• lo mein

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black