ketchup (English)

Where does "ketchup" come from?

The English noun 'ketchup' first appeared in the late 17th century to describe a Southeast Asian fish sauce encountered by British traders and sailors[1]. The word likely originates ultimately from Hokkien 'kê-chiap', meaning fish sauce or fish brine, which traveled via Malay 'kicap'[1][2]. During the 18th century, the term was commonly used for a variety of similar non-tomato sauces made from ingredients like anchovies, mushrooms, walnuts, and oysters, before tomato-based ketchup became the most popular variety by the late 19th century[1].

Open questions

• The precise transmission path from Hokkien through Malay to English remains unclear, and various other theories and related words in other Chinese languages exist. [1]

Full etymology tree

• ketchup (English), 'Ellipsis of tomato ketchup (“a tomato-vinegar-based sauce, sometimes containing spices, onion or garlic, and (especially in the US) sweeteners”).'
  • borrowed kicap (Malay), 'soy sauce'
    • inherited 膎汁 (kê-chiap) (Hokkien)

Ancestors

• kicap (Malay)

Cognates and doublets

• kecap (Indonesian)
• kicap (Malay)

Descendants and derived words

• кетчуп (Belarusian)
• quètxup (Catalan)
• kečup (Czech)
• ketchup (Danish)
• ketchup (Dutch)
• banana ketchup (English)
• curry ketchup (English)
• ketchupless (English)
• ketchuplike (English)
• ketchuppy (English)
• marry the ketchup (English)
• marry the ketchups (English)

Related words

• tomato (English)

Sources

1. ketchup (English) - Wiktionary
2. kicap (Malay) - Wiktionary

Updated September 2026

More words starting with K

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris