Meanings
plural Thousand Island dressings · alternative thousand island dressing · alternative Thousand Islands dressing · alternative thousand islands dressing
- countableuncountableA salad dressing of mayonnaise, ketchup, Tabasco sauce and finely chopped vegetables.
'Soft-shell crabs with tartare sauce, flat beef Hamburgers, medium-rare, from the charcoal grill, french-fried potatoes, broccoli, mixed salad with thousand-island dressing, ice-cream with melted butterscotch and as good a Liebfraumilch as you can get in America. Okay?'
1954, Ian Fleming, “The Red Carpet”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 9Synonyms: Thousand Island sauce, Thousand Islands sauce, thousand island sauce, thousand islands sauce, Thousand Island salad dressing, Thousand Islands salad dressing, thousand island salad dressing, thousand islands salad dressing
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA salad dressing of mayonnaise, ketchup, Tabasco sauce and finely chopped vegetables.
Origin
From Thousand Island + dressing, because the dressing has often been said to have originated in the Thousand Islands region, located along the upper St Lawrence River, near its head at Lake Ontario, between the United States and Canada. As Wikipedia explains, this etymology is not known with certainty.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Chinese Cantonese 千島醬 /千岛酱
- 千島醬 /千岛酱 (cin¹ dou² zoeng³)salad dressing
Finnish thousand island -kastike
- thousand island -kastikesalad dressing
French vinaigrette des mille îles
- vinaigrette des mille îlessalad dressing
German Amerikaner Dressing, American Dressing
- Amerikaner Dressingsalad dressing
- American Dressingsalad dressing
- Amerika Dressingsalad dressing
Polish sos tysiąca wysp
- sos tysiąca wyspsalad dressing
Swedish Rhode islandsås
- Rhode islandsåssalad dressing
Cite this entry
Thousand Island dressing. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Thousand%20Island%20dressing
“Thousand Island dressing.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Thousand%20Island%20dressing. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Thousand Island dressing,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Thousand%20Island%20dressing.
Source: Thousand Island dressing on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.