Standard Lemma guide

bouillabaisse

noun · 3 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈbuːjəˌbeɪs/
  • Received-Pronunciation: /-ˌbɛs/
  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˌbuːjəˈbeɪs/
  • UK: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • General-American: /ˈbujəˌbeɪs/
  • General-American: /ˌbujəˈbeɪs/
  • US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • rhymes with -eɪs
  • rhymes with -eɪz

1

noun

Meaning 1

A type of fish soup or stew from Provence, France.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

Topics: cooking, food, lifestyle

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

A chaotic, disorganized mixture; a confused hodgepodge.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: broadly, countable, figuratively, uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: bouillabaisse, bric-a-brac, catch-all, clamjamfrey, cocktail, rummage, salad, anthology, gallery, congeries, crazyquilt, disjecta membra, farrago, galimatias, gallimaufry, grab bag, hodgepodge, horse and rabbit stew, hotchpotch, hotchpot, job lot, jumble, macedoine, medley, melange, mingle-mangle, miscellanea, miscellany, mishmash, mixed bag, mixture, motley, odds and ends, oddments, olio, olla podrida, omnium-gatherum, pastiche, patchwork quilt, potpourri, ragbag, salmagundi, slurry, smorgasbord, welter, Whitman's sampler, admixture, alloy, amalgam, blend, combination, combo, composite, composition, compound, ming, mix, muddle

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

highly seasoned Mediterranean soup or stew made of several kinds of fish and shellfish with tomatoes and onions or leeks and seasoned with saffron and garlic and herbs

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: fish stew

History

Etymology

Borrowed from French bouillabaisse, from Occitan bolhabaissa, bouiabaisso, possibly a compound of bolhir (“to boil”) + abaissar (“to lower (the temperature)”).

Across languages

Translations

19 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Catalan: bullabessa — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Chinese Cantonese: 馬賽魚湯 /马赛鱼汤 (maa5 coi3 jyu4 tong1) — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Chinese Mandarin: 馬賽魚湯 /马赛鱼汤 (Mǎsài yútāng) — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Czech: bujabéza — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Finnish: bouillabaisse — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Finnish: ranskalainen kalakeitto — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • French: bouillabaisse — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • German: Bouillabaisse — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Greek: μπουγιαμπέσα (bougiampésa) — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Hebrew: בּוּיָאבֶּז (buyabéz) — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Italian: bouillabaisse — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Japanese: ブイヤベース (buiyabēsu) — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Korean: 부야베스 (buyabeseu) — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Occitan: bolhabaissa — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Polish: bouillabaisse — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Portuguese: bouillabaisse — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Russian: буйабе́с (bujabés) — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Spanish: bullabesa — type of fish stew or soup from Provence
  • Swedish: bouillabaisse — type of fish stew or soup from Provence