birria

noun

bir·​ria ˈbir-ē-ˌä 

plural birrias

: a Mexican dish of stewed meat seasoned especially with chili peppers

Customers sometimes drive hours for its … lamb birria.

—Janelle Brown

Fresh brisket, the base of this birria, takes especially well to moist, slow, and untended oven cooking with mild chilies, seeds and spices, vinegar, and onions.

—Sunset

The birria here is gentler, yet gamier than the bold beef birrias of Tijuana and Northern Mexico. The meat itself is shredded rather finely and the subtle broth benefited from a couple squeezes of lime and handful of raw onions.

—Andi Berlin

Examples of birria in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The marrow, like all marrow, is obscene in its richness; the birria, like the best birria, has a dark, curvaceous intensity. —Helen Rosner, The New Yorker, 20 Oct. 2024

Katy Velazquez, director of culinary innovation for Qdoba, was first introduced to birria while in Mexico for a previous job. —Amelia Lucas, CNBC, 25 Sep. 2024

Eaten together, on a warm masa tortilla , the marrow and the birria nearly overwhelm each other, but both are kept just in balance by the snap of pickled onion and the sharp bite of cilantro. —Helen Rosner, The New Yorker, 20 Oct. 2024

Pelon's Food Truck specializes in Jalisco-style Mexican food but is best known for its birria, chicken tinga and carnitas tacos. —Endia Fontanez, The Arizona Republic, 15 Oct. 2024

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Mexican Spanish, from Spanish, "thing of no consequence, trash," earlier "obstinacy, tantrum, whim," perhaps going back to Vulgar Latin *verrea, derivative of Latin verrēs "uncastrated male pig, boar," going back to Indo-European *u̯ers-ēn- "male of an animal" (in Latin restructured from a presumed nominative singular *werrēn), whence also, with varying ablaut, Sanskrit vŕṣan- "manly, mighty," (as noun) "male of an animal," Avestan varəšna- "manly," Ossetic wyrs- (Iron dialect), urs- (Digor dialect) "stallion," Lithuanian ver͂šis "calf, bull"

Note: This etymology of Spanish birria follows J. Coromines, Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico. Coromines sees the original sense as "obstinacy," alluding to a stereotypical quality of a boar, from which other senses have branched; he compares the meanings of Judeo-Spanish birra, embirra "rage, anger," Colombian Spanish birria "excessive devotion to a pastime or sport." Alongside Latin verrēs and other forms descending from Indo-European *u̯ers-ēn-, there is a second set of words with closely related meanings that lack the initial u; Sanskrit rṣabhá- "bull," Avestan aršan- "male," Old Persian ariya-rša-, a personal name, Armenian aṙn "ram," Greek ársēn, érsēn (Attic árrēn) "male." The relationship—or lack of relationship—of these words to each other has long been debated, as well as their possible relation to the verbal bases *h₂ers-, taken to mean "to flow," and *u̯ers- (or h₂u̯ers-) "to rain." T. Pronk (Historische Sprachforschung, Band 122 [2009], pp. 170-81) has proposed that the set without the semivowel resulted from misanalysis of a compound *g^weh₃u-ursēn, literally, "cow-male" (see cow entry 1) which he believes is attested directly in Tocharian A kayurṣ "bull," Tocharian B kaurṣe, and Old Icelandic kursi, kussi (the source of the form kursi, cited as "Old Norse" in G. Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, is not specified). The initial u̯ of *u̯(e)rs-n- was taken as part of the preceding element *g^w(e)h₃u-, resulting in a new word with syllabic r.

First Known Use

1953, in the meaning defined above