ghee
/ɡʰiː/noun
ghee is a noun meaning “A type of clarified butter used in South Asian cooking” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled G-H-E-E and has one syllable, and it appears about once in every 2 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of ghee is ghees.
What does ghee mean?
noun
- 1
A type of clarified butter used in South Asian cooking.
- 2
Vegetable oil for cooking.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce ghee?
- /ɡʰiː/
- /ɡiː/
Ghee has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-ghee.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of ghee
- ghees plural
- ghi
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is ghee?
Ghee appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 43,187th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Ghee in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense South Asian-style clarified butter:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | ghî, ghee |
| German | Ghee |
| Portuguese | ghee |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does ghee come from?
Borrowed from Hindustani گھی (ghī) / घी (ghī), traditionally explained as from Sanskrit घृत (ghṛta, “sprinkled”) (See घृत entry 3 for details). First attested in the late 17th century.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).