berbere
/bɛɚˈbɛɚ.ɹeɪ/
berbere noun: a spice mixture, usually consisting of chili peppers, garlic, ginger, basil, and other spices, which is used in Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisine.

Noun
berbere (uncountable)
- A spice mixture, usually consisting of chili peppers, garlic, ginger, basil, and other spices, which is used in Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisine.
- Food in Ethiopia is always seasoned with berberè, a kind of pimiento.1939, Ferdinando Quaranta di San Severino, Ethiopia, an empire in the making, page 16
- Wat is a sauce composed of legumes, including horsebeans, chickpeas, kidneybeans, and lentils pounded to a flour, and mixed with spices. First berbere (red pepper) is dried and ground, then mixed with onions and butter, thus forming a thick cream.1958, The Journal of Tropical Pediatrics and African Child Health
Origin of berbere
From Amharic በርበሬ (bärbäre) and/or Tigrinya በርበረ (bärbärä).
Questions about berbere
- What does berbere mean?
- Berbere means a spice mixture, usually consisting of chili peppers, garlic, ginger, basil, and other spices, which is used in Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisine.
- What part of speech is berbere?
- Berbere is a noun.
- How do you pronounce berbere?
- Berbere is pronounced /bɛɚˈbɛɚ.ɹeɪ/.
Words near berbere in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: berbere (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-berbere.ogg.
Cite this entry: “berbere.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/berbere. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
