sushi

Formssushis, sushiing, sushied

1. 1
   noununcountable

   A Japanese dish of bite-size portions of vinegared rice topped with or rolled around fish, vegetables, or other ingredients, often in a seaweed wrapper.

   We shared several plates of sushi at the new restaurant downtown.

   Traditional sushi pairs vinegared rice with carefully sliced fish.

   Note

   The name points at the rice, not the fish. Japanese sushi comes from an archaic form of an adjective meaning "sour, vinegared." That is why cucumber sushi is still sushi, and why Tanizaki could praise a persimmon-leaf sushi from the mountains of Yoshino. Use it as a mass noun (order sushi, some sushi). The looser use for raw fish generally drifts away from this origin.

2. 2
   nounrarecountable

   A single portion of sushi, counted as one piece rather than the food in general.

   She picked up a single sushi with her chopsticks and dipped it lightly in soy sauce.

   Startled by the venom, Erik almost dropped a sushi into his mixture of soy sauce and wasabi.

   2009, Frank Penater, “Undercover”

   Note

   Counting sushi piece by piece is uncommon, but it does happen. In Jean Marzollo's The Green Ghost of Appleville (1989), one child puts "a sushi" in another's palm. The plural usually stays unchanged, as when Robert Nadeau writes in 1983 that "the sushi are the rolls," although sushis also exists. In careful writing, "a piece of sushi" is the safer way to count the dish.

3. 3
   nounnonstandarduncountable

   Raw fish, especially when served as a Japanese dish.

   She won't eat sushi while pregnant because of the raw fish.

   Grandpa refuses to touch sushi; he says fish should be cooked until it flakes.

   Similarsashimi

   Note

   This is a popular stretch of the word that careful speakers reject. The name refers to the vinegared rice, as the Japanese origin behind the dish itself shows, so fish on its own is not sushi. In Alison Acheson's Molly's Cue (2012), a mother forbids sushi because "you can't eat uncooked fish," which shows the everyday equation at work. In writing, say raw fish, and keep sushi for the rice.

4. 4
   verbcolloquialtransitive

   To prepare a piece of food so that it is served as sushi.

   The chef likes to sushi local vegetables when good fish is scarce.

   They sushi the day's catch within hours of landing it.

   Note

   The noun turned into a verb, an informal coinage that suits lighthearted prose better than formal writing. The regular forms are sushied and sushiing. Writers unsure how those look sometimes add a hyphen, as Lonely Planet Canada (2017) does when it lists fish "sushi-ed, fresh, smoked." The verb is transitive, and its object is the food being prepared.

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