Meanings
plural tourtières · alternative tortiere · alternative tourtiere
- CanadaQuebeccountableuncountableA type of traditional French-Canadian meat pie, usually made with pork.
1 more example
Last December, I called my mother to get her recipe for tourtière, a beloved traditional French-Canadian dish. It would be the meaningful heart of a bundle of gifts I had lovingly gathered to honour a Métis elder I had recently met. To share this recipe for tourtière was to share a piece of my family’s story with this elder, to whom I owed a great debt of gratitude.
2018 November 30, Isabelle Bourgeault-Tassé, “How a family recipe taught me what’s at stake when Franco-Ontarians lose their roots”, in The Globe and Mail
Origin
- Frenchtourte“meat pie”
- Canadian Frenchtourtière
- Englishtourtière
From Canadian French tourtière, from a cooking vessel of the same name, from French tourte (“meat pie”). There is a common false etymology that it derives from the alternative meaning tourte (“passenger pigeon”).
More words from Canadian French, French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
tourtière. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tourti%C3%A8re
“tourtière.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tourti%C3%A8re. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tourtière,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tourti%C3%A8re.
Source: tourtière on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.