kofta
/ˈkɑːftə/noun
kofta is a noun meaning “Any of various spicy meatball or meatloaf dishes of the Middle East, Caucasus, South Asia, and the Balkans” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled K-O-F-T-A, and it appears about once in every 21 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of kofta is koftas.
What does kofta mean?
noun
- 1
Any of various spicy meatball or meatloaf dishes of the Middle East, Caucasus, South Asia, and the Balkans.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce kofta?
- UK /ˈkɒftə/
- US /ˈkɑːftə/
- US /ˈkɔːftə/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-kofta.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of kofta
- koftas plural
- kafta
- kofte
- koufta
- kufta
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is kofta?
Kofta appears about once in every 21 million words in written English, the 138,319th 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).
Kofta in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense meatball or meatloaf dish:
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 kofta come from?
Borrowed from Classical Persian کوفْتَه (kōfta, “ground meat”), from کوفْتَن (kōftan, “to grind, break, beat”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).