queso

Borrowed from Spanish queso, as found in Tex-Mex cuisine. Doublet of cheese.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkeɪsoʊ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkeɪsəʊ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪsəʊ

queso (usually uncountable, plural quesos)

1. Short for chile con queso: melted cheese, used for instance as a dipping sauce.
   • 1998, Jane Butel, Jane Butel’s Quick and Easy Southwestern Cookbook, New York, N.Y.: Harmony Books, →ISBN, page 237:

     The day before, prepare the tortillas for the chalupitas and the quesos.

   • 2009, Pat Miller et al., editors, Gabby Gourmet 2009 Restaurant Guide: Your Guide to Dining in the Greater Denver Area by Pat Miller and Friends, Denver, Colo.: TDF Publishing Ltd., →ISBN, page 340:

     The ceviche is very good with just the right amount of spice; and quesos with chorizos and flour tortillas are a must.

   • 2012, Alison Cook, “Why Chile con Queso Matters”, in Brett Anderson, Sara Camp Arnold, John T. Edge, editors, Cornbread Nation 6: The Best of Southern Food Writing, Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, →ISBN, page 7:

     All quesos, of course, are not created equal. You can have the high-rent, artisanal versions; I’ll take the low road. Snobbery has no place in my personal connoisseurship, since my quesos of choice are (almost) invariably made of processed cheese.

From Latin cāseum, accusative of cāseus. Cognate with Old Leonese keso and Old Portuguese queijo.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkezo/

queso m (plural quesos)

1. cheese
   • c. 1250, Alfonso X, Lapidario, f. 12v:

     Et ſi la fregan con la leche. lo q̃ ende ſale, quaia toda la leche ſobre q̃ la pongan ⁊ por ende los daq̃lla tierra uſan della en ſus q̃sos. ⁊ en toda otra coſa de leche q̃ quierẽ quaiar.

     And if they wash it with milk, what results from it curdles the milk into which it is put, and so the people of that land use it in their cheeses, or in any other dairy thing they wish to curdle.

• keso

• Ladino: kézo
• Spanish: queso (see there for further descendants)

Inherited from Old Spanish queso, from Latin cāseus, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kwh₂et- (“to ferment”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈkeso/ [ˈke.so]

• Audio (Peru):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eso
• Syllabification: que‧so

queso m (plural quesos)

1. cheese

   Synonym: formaje

2. (Spain, colloquial) foot

• caseoso
• quesadilla
• quesero, quesera
• requesón

• “queso”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014