chilli crab
UK/ˈt͡ʃɪli kɹæb/
chilli crab noun: a dish originated and popularized in Singapore, made up of stir-fried crab cooked in a semi-thick sweet and savoury tomato- and chilli-based sauce.
Noun
chilli crab (countable and uncountable, plural chilli crabs)
- A dish originated and popularized in Singapore, made up of stir-fried crab cooked in a semi-thick sweet and savoury tomato- and chilli-based sauce.
- Mr Lim’s family lays claim to being the first to invent chilli crab here in 1956.2000 November 23, Ong Wan Shu, The Straits Times
- But for that special meal, Singapore chilli crab (spicy chilli and tomato-based crab stir-fry dish; see the recipe), black pepper crab (sweet and spicy chilli and black pepper-based stir fry dish) or simple steamed crab (all using mud crab) are much-loved treats.2003, Su-Lyn Tan, World Food Malaysia & Singapore, page 55
Forms of chilli crab
| plural | chilli crabs |
|---|---|
| alternative form | chili crab |
Origin of chilli crab
Compound of chilli + crab.
Questions about chilli crab
- What does chilli crab mean?
- Chilli crab means a dish originated and popularized in Singapore, made up of stir-fried crab cooked in a semi-thick sweet and savoury tomato- and chilli-based sauce.
- What part of speech is chilli crab?
- Chilli crab is a noun.
- How do you pronounce chilli crab?
- Chilli crab is pronounced /ˈt͡ʃɪli kɹæb/ (UK).
- What is the plural of chilli crab?
- The plural of chilli crab is chilli crabs.
Words near chilli crab in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: chilli crab (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:
Cite this entry: “chilli crab.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chilli_crab. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.