Word.ws English Dictionary

pilau

pilau is the alternative spelling of pilaf.

Meaning of pilaf

Noun

pilaf (countable and uncountable, plural pilafs)

  1. A dish made by browning grain, typically rice, in oil and then cooking it with a seasoned broth, to which meat and/or vegetables may be added.
    • My spirits rose as I passed among the tents and savored the aroma of steaming pots of pilaf and the long skewers of shashlyk roasting over the open fires.1952, Cothburn O’Neal, chapter 1, in Master of the World (Avon; N158), New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, published 1967, →OCLC, book 1, page 17

Adjective

pilau (not comparable)

  1. (Hawaii, slang) filthy

Forms of pilau

pluralpilaus

Origin of pilau

Borrowed from Hawaiian pilau (“putrid”).

Questions about pilau

What does pilau mean?
Pilau means filthy.
What is pilau the alternative spelling of?
Pilau is the alternative spelling of pilaf.
What part of speech is pilau?
Pilau is an adjective.

Words near pilau in the dictionary

  1. pilate
  2. pilates
  3. Pilatian
  4. Pilatism
  5. Pilats
  6. pilau
  7. pilaus
  8. pilav
  9. Pilavjian
  10. Pilavjians
  11. pilaw

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pilau (page history and authors); pilaf (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-pilau.wav.

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