street food

noun

plural street foods

: prepared food of a kind that is typically sold to customers on a street or sidewalk and that is often designed to be carried and eaten while walking

Pizza is quintessentially a street food: a quick lunch or a quick snack often eaten standing up or on the go.

—Don Lesser

Traditionally eaten as street food, empanadas are ideal for snacking on the go but are just as satisfying to sit down to for a simple dinner.

—Melissa Roberts and Maggie Ruggiero

Satays, which are skewered and grilled morsels of beef, fish, chicken, pork, or vegetables, are street food in Southeast Asia, devoured day and night with gusto.

—Karen MacNeil

Examples of street food in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The events, which have been publicized widely on social media, began in Daly City in September as a fun way to launch the start of the store’s new street food program, according to Patricia Francisco, the Seafood City’s head of digital marketing and events. —Kate Bradshaw, Mercury News, 7 Nov. 2025

Our halal is clean and healthy street food — the pure nutrients form the dish. —Regina Elling, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Nov. 2025

Browse handmade jewelry, paintings, and street food at the open-air feira—local market—at Praça do Cova, near Praia dos Anjos. —Aaron Randolph, Travel + Leisure, 5 Nov. 2025

In addition to a grocery area, there will be a food court with restaurants like the first-ever location of Crab Market, a seafood restaurant run by Seafood City, as well as stalls serving Filipino and pan-Asian street foods. —Reia Li, AZCentral.com, 3 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1860, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for street food

• accrued
• allude
• collude
• conclude
• construed
• debuted
• delude
• elude
• endued
• ensued
• eschewed
• etude

Kids Definition

street food

noun

: prepared food of a kind that is typically sold to customers on a street or sidewalk and that is often designed to be carried and eaten while walking