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Chinese restaurant syndrome

Chinese restaurant syndrome noun: a supposed syndrome associated with consumption of the westernized version of Chinese food, characterized by various symptoms such as burning and tingling sensations, rapid heartbeat, and drowsiness, and initially ascribed to monosodium glutamate (but possibly just psychosomatic, or hypernatremia from overconsumption of salt).

Noun

Chinese restaurant syndrome (uncountable)

  1. A supposed syndrome associated with consumption of the westernized version of Chinese food, characterized by various symptoms such as burning and tingling sensations, rapid heartbeat, and drowsiness, and initially ascribed to monosodium glutamate (but possibly just psychosomatic, or hypernatremia from overconsumption of salt).

Synonyms of Chinese restaurant syndrome

Origin of Chinese restaurant syndrome

Coined by Robert Ho Man Kwok in a 1968 letter to the New England Journal of Medicine.

Questions about Chinese restaurant syndrome

What does Chinese restaurant syndrome mean?
Chinese restaurant syndrome means a supposed syndrome associated with consumption of the westernized version of Chinese food, characterized by various symptoms such as burning and tingling sensations, rapid heartbeat, and drowsiness, and initially ascribed to monosodium glutamate (but possibly just psychosomatic, or hypernatremia from overconsumption of salt).
What part of speech is Chinese restaurant syndrome?
Chinese restaurant syndrome is a noun.

Words near Chinese restaurant syndrome in the dictionary

  1. Chinese red
  2. Chinese reds
  3. Chinese remainder theorem
  4. Chinese restaurant process
  5. Chinese restaurant processes
  6. Chinese restaurant syndrome
  7. Chinese river dolphin
  8. Chinese river dolphins
  9. Chinese room
  10. Chinese rooms
  11. Chinese ropes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Chinese restaurant syndrome (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.

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Cite this entry: “Chinese restaurant syndrome.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chinese_restaurant_syndrome. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.