gourmet

Borrowed from French gourmet, from Middle French gourmet, from Old French groumet (“wine broker, valet in charge of wines, servant”) from groume, grommes (“wine-taster, manservant”), apparently from Middle English grom, grome (“boy, valet, servant”), from Old English *grōma (“male child, boy, youth”), akin to Old English grōwan (“to grow”). Cognate of Spanish grumete and Catalan grumet. More at groom.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ɡʊɹˈmeɪ/, /ˈɡʊɹmeɪ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɡʊəmeɪ/, /ˈɡɔːmeɪ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪ

gourmet (not comparable)

1. (of food and drink) Fine; of superior quality. [from 1820]

   We need to go to the gourmet grocery store to get the exotic ingredients for this recipe.

   The restaurant offered gourmet coffee and cigars after the meal.

   • 1994, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Pulp Fiction, spoken by Jules (Samuel Jackson):

     [On the coffee] Mmm! God damn, Jimmie! This is some serious gourmet shit!

Gourmet has become somewhat debased by marketing usage, and is considered by some a pretentious middlebrow term. Such users tend to prefer terms such as artisanal (emphasizing the craft) for fine food.

• artisanal

gourmet (plural gourmets)

1. A connoisseur in eating and drinking; someone who takes their food seriously.

Gourmet emphasizes interest in quality of food and enjoyment of eating, sometimes to an obsessive degree: someone who “lives to eat rather than eating to live”. By contrast, a gourmand is someone more interested in quantity of food than quality of food.

• foodie
• gourmand

• gourmand
• haute cuisine

• IPA^(key): /ɣuːrˈmɛt/, /ɡuːrˈmɛt/

Borrowed from French gourmet.

gourmet m (plural gourmets, diminutive gourmetje n)

1. a person of refined palate for food and drink, a gourmet, a foodie
2. a kind of festive meal, similar to raclette or Chinese hot pot, prepared at the table by the diners in individual pots heated by a raclette grill

• gourmetten
• gourmetpan
• gourmetset

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

gourmet

1. inflection of gourmetten:
   1. first/second/third-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative

From French gourmet.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡurmeː/, [ˈɡurme̞ː]
• Rhymes: -urmeː
• Syllabification^(key): gour‧met
• Hyphenation^(key): gour‧met

gourmet

1. alternative form of gurmee

gourmet

1. alternative form of gurmee

• “gourmet”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2 July 2023

Inherited from Middle French gourmet, from Old French groumet (“wine broker, valet in charge of wines, servant”) from Old French grommes (“manservant”), from Middle English grom, grome (“boy, valet, servant”) of unknown origin, perhaps from Old English *grōma (“male child, boy, youth”) from Old English grōwan (“to grow”). Cognate of Spanish grumete and Catalan grumet. More at groom.

• IPA^(key): /ɡuʁ.mɛ/

• Audio:

  (file)

gourmet m (plural gourmets)

1. (of wines) a wine expert, especially one who is adept at determining the label, date, and sundry other qualities solely by smatch
2. (more commonly) a culinary connoisseur, gourmet

• “gourmet”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Unadapted borrowing from French gourmet.

gourmet m or f by sense (invariable)

1. gourmet

• gourmet in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

• gurmê (rare)

Unadapted borrowing from French gourmet.

• Rhymes: -e

gourmet (invariable)

1. (of food) gourmet; fine

gourmet m or f by sense (plural gourmets)

1. gourmet (a person who appreciates good food)

• “gourmet”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2025
• “gourmet”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025
• “gourmet”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025
• “gourmet”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2025

Unadapted borrowing from French gourmet.

• IPA^(key): /ɡuɾˈmet/ [ɡuɾˈmet̪]
  • Rhymes: -et
• IPA^(key): /ɡuɾˈme/ [ɡuɾˈme]
  • Rhymes: -e

gourmet m or f (masculine and feminine plural gourmets)

1. gourmet

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

• “gourmet”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

gourmet c

1. someone to whom good food is very important; a gourmet

   Synonyms: (less common) gourmé, läckergom

• finsmakare
• gourmand

• gourmet in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• gourmet in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• gourmet in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)