raclette

noun

ra·​clette ra-ˈklet 

rä-

: a Swiss dish consisting of cheese melted over a fire and then scraped onto bread or boiled potatoes

also : the cheese used in this dish

Examples of raclette in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Pfeiffer’s Big Mac riff, a tribute to business partner Louis Mele’s career, swaps slices of standard American for gooey raclette and Gruyere. —Mary Lebus, Cincinnati Enquirer, 15 Dec. 2025

With only a few weekends before Christmas, the market was still packed with people eager to get festive food and drinks, including Joey, who came dressed for his annual baguette with raclette. —Marissa Sulek, CBS News, 14 Dec. 2025

Its mild raclette cheese starts at $9 per half pound. —Susan Selasky, Freep.com, 11 Dec. 2025

Is the raclette worth the wait? —Bradley Hohulin, IndyStar, 21 Nov. 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French, borrowed from Swiss French (Valais) (perhaps originally from a Franco-Provençal form), from racler "to scrape, even or clean by scraping" (going back to Middle French raicler, racler, borrowed from Old Occitan rasclar, going back to Vulgar Latin *rāsclāre, syncopated from *rāsiculāre, iterative from rāsus, past participle of rādere "to scrape, scratch, pare away, shave") + -ette, deverbal suffix marking place or object of an action; so called because the cheese was traditionally melted and scraped from a larger piece onto the other ingredients; as a name for a cheese, short for fromage à raclette — more at rase, -ette

First Known Use

circa 1949, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for raclette

• abet
• asset
• baguette
• banquette
• barbette
• beget
• beset
• brevet
• briquette
• brunet
• brunette
• burette