water chestnut

noun

1

: any of a genus (Trapa, especially T. natans of the family Lythraceae, the loosestrife family) of Old World aquatic herbs sometimes grown as ornamentals

also : its edible nutlike spiny fruit

2

: a whitish crunchy vegetable used especially in Chinese cooking that is the peeled and often sliced tuber of a sedge (Eleocharis dulcis synonym E. tuberosa) native to Asia but widely cultivated elsewhere

also : the tuber or the sedge itself

Examples of water chestnut in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Get The Recipe 02 of 42 Hot Chicken Salad This old-school dish combines creamy chicken salad with pimientos, mushrooms, and water chestnuts. —Mary Shannon Wells, Southern Living, 16 Apr. 2024

The city’s first Michelin Green Star restaurant, Seroja, sources many ingredients from the island and neighboring Malaysia and uses vegetable trimmings to create nonalcoholic drinks, such as a refreshing cocktail of watercress, sansho pepper, and water chestnut. —Travel + Leisure Editors, Travel + Leisure, 8 Apr. 2024

Cooking easily ruptures cells in, say, spinach and zucchini, but cassava (Manihot esculenta) or Chinese water chestnut (Eleocharis dulcis) is much more resistant. —Rob Dunn, Scientific American, 1 Sep. 2013

To see them is to preview the flavor of some dumplings; ground duck, cilantro and water chestnuts are visible inside their sheer orbs. —Tom Sietsema, Washington Post, 20 Oct. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1597, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

water chestnut

noun

: a whitish crunchy vegetable used especially in Chinese cooking that is the peeled underground stem of an Asian sedge

also : the sedge or its underground stem