Etymology

spring roll

Today it means: A type of savoury food consisting of shredded vegetables wrapped in a pancake made from rice flour and then fried. Full definition →

Chinese 春捲 /春卷
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Chinese · calque of春捲 /春卷
  2. English todayspring roll

Calque of Chinese 春捲 /春卷 (chūnjuǎn, literally “vernal/spring-time spool”), equivalent to spring + roll.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.