What does bolognese mean?
Bolognese means 'of Bologna', the capital of Italy's Emilia-Romagna region, but in everyday English it most often names the celebrated Italian meat sauce known in Italy simply as ragù. Made by slowly simmering minced beef — sometimes with pork — together with onion, carrot, celery and tomatoes, often enriched with wine and a little milk, bolognese is the sauce behind the hugely popular British dish 'spaghetti bolognese', affectionately nicknamed 'spag bol'. Curiously, in Bologna itself the sauce is traditionally served with fresh egg tagliatelle rather than spaghetti. The word also appears in capitalized form to describe anything characteristic of Bologna, from its Renaissance painters to a small lapdog breed called the Bolognese. Whether naming a comforting family dinner or a proud regional identity, bolognese carries warm associations of hearty, slow-cooked Italian cooking.
A rich sauce of minced meat cooked slowly with tomatoes, onion, celery and carrot, typically served with pasta.
"I made a big pot of bolognese for the family dinner."
Relating to or typical of Bologna in northern Italy, or of the style of cooking associated with it.
"The gallery displayed works by seventeenth-century Bolognese masters."
In Bologna itself, nobody calls it 'spaghetti bolognese' — locals serve their beloved ragù with tagliatelle, never spaghetti.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bolognese
Bolognese derives from Italian, where it literally means 'of Bologna', the city in Emilia-Romagna whose cuisine gave the world its famous meat ragù. It entered English in the nineteenth century, first as an adjective describing the city and its artistic traditions, later extending to the sauce. The same root produced the unrelated-sounding but etymologically linked words 'Bologna' and, through it, the American sausage 'bologna' (colloquially 'baloney').
How bolognese is actually used
In Britain, 'spaghetti bolognese' is an extremely common home-cooked dish, often shortened to 'spag bol'; Italians typically pair the sauce with tagliatelle rather than spaghetti. When capitalized as 'Bolognese', the word refers specifically to things from Bologna, including its school of painting and a breed of small dog.
Easily confused with bolognese
Bologna is the Italian city the word derives from; bologna (or baloney) is a type of American sausage named after that city, while bolognese describes the city's style or its famous meat sauce.