Word.ws English Dictionary

zelnik

zelnik noun: a traditional pastry eaten in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, composed of layers of thinly-rolled leavened wheat flour dough, or possibly phyllo pastry, filled with various combinations of sirene (a white cheese), feta cheese, eggs, sorrel, browned meat, leeks, spring onions and/or rice.

zelnik: a traditional pastry eaten in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, composed of layers of thinly-rolled...
Image: Cuklev, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

zelnik (countable and uncountable, plural zelniks)

  1. A traditional pastry eaten in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, composed of layers of thinly-rolled leavened wheat flour dough, or possibly phyllo pastry, filled with various combinations of sirene (a white cheese), feta cheese, eggs, sorrel, browned meat, leeks, spring onions and/or rice.
    • A zelnik, a stuffed, layered pastry, is one of the family’s favorite dishes. […] You will need a round zelnik pan — about 16 inches in diameter, about 2 inches deep and available from the Greek store in City Market — to make this Macedonian specialty.1983 April 27, “She Shares Heritage”, in The Indianapolis News, Indianapolis, Ind., page 38, column 3
    • An accomplished performer on the gaida, the proprietor would close his store in order to ‘play for the girls’ as they drank coffee and ate zelnik.1995, Lillian Petroff, “Community Life”, in Sojourners and Settlers: The Macedonian Community in Toronto to 1940 (Ethnic and Immigration History Series), Toronto, Ont.: Multicultural History Society...

Forms of zelnik

pluralzelniks

Origin of zelnik

From Bulgarian and Macedonian зелник (zelnik).

Questions about zelnik

What does zelnik mean?
Zelnik means a traditional pastry eaten in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, composed of layers of thinly-rolled leavened wheat flour dough, or possibly phyllo pastry, filled with various combinations of sirene (a white cheese), feta cheese, eggs, sorrel, browned meat, leeks, spring onions and/or rice.
What part of speech is zelnik?
Zelnik is a noun.
What is the plural of zelnik?
The plural of zelnik is zelniks.

Words near zelnik in the dictionary

  1. Zellweger syndrome
  2. Zelly
  3. Zelma
  4. Zelman
  5. Zelmans
  6. zelnik
  7. zelniks
  8. Zelophehad
  9. zeloso
  10. zelotic
  11. zelotypia

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: zelnik (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: “zelnik.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/zelnik. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.