gulyás

noun

A traditional Hungarian dish of beef, pork, or veal stew with potatoes, dumplings, or both, seasoned with paprika.

Meanings

noungulyás (countable and uncountable)
  1. countableuncountableA traditional Hungarian dish of beef, pork, or veal stew with potatoes, dumplings, or both, seasoned with paprika.

    Nomadizing Hungarian shepherds and fishermen were perhaps the first people who cooked a gulyás in their bogrács.

    1965, Esquire, volume 64, New York, N.Y., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 130, columns 1–2
    5 more examples

    Life comes to the shepherd through the nomadic gypsy campers. It comes to the czikos through the inn, where hot gulyás, melody and dancing await him.

    1939 July 16, Louise L[lewellyn] Jarecka, “Summer Days in Old Budapest: The Guard Parades”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC

    Wherever she has been Mrs. Del Valle has wrested recipes—usually with difficulty-from every culinary expert she has encountered. Formulas for such exotic dishes as magnate’s gulyás, risotto and arroz con pollo find their way into her book, and though many are foreign in origin there are also some old friends present beaten biscuits, brown betty and green tomato pickle.

    1941 July 15, Jane Holt, “Clam Bisque, a Compromise Between Broth and Chowder, Now Comes in a Can”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC

    Similarly, Hungarian cooks add it to many meat dishes, above all to their national dish, gulyás or gulyáshús (goulash), which means herdsman’s meat. Mrs. Bennett writes that goulash probably originated in herdsmen's camps, where meat and vegetables were simmered together in black kettles over campfires.

    1955 January 17, Jane Nickerson, “News of Food: Paprika Adds Zest to Many Dishes—Refrigeration Preserves Its Flavor”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 May 2025

    Ronay’s taste ran to gulyás (as it should be spelled), sole Walewska and dinner at Maxims in Paris – all emblems of the early years of the last century or the last years of the one before.

    2010 June 14, Paul Levy, “Egon Ronay: Restaurateur and journalist who fled Hungary to make a lasting impact on British gastronomy”, in The Independent, London: Independent News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 Jan 2012

    It serves traditional Hungarian food such as bean gulyás (paprika-spiced soup), but its real draw is the setting, an old wooden hut in the hilltop village where you can take off your wet winter boots and warm up by the fireplace with a tea.

    2020 January 18, Zsófia Fischer, “My happy place: where European locals immerse themselves in nature”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 18 Jan 2020

Origin

  1. Hungariangulyás
  2. Englishgulyás

Unadapted borrowing from Hungarian gulyás. Doublet of goulash.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

gulyás. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/guly%C3%A1s

MLA

“gulyás.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/guly%C3%A1s. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “gulyás,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/guly%C3%A1s.

Source: gulyás on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.