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

But street food is hard to resist. —Christopher Elliott, USA Today, 17 Mar. 2026

Behind a stone oven imported from Lebanon is chef/manager Hilana Yousef, who for 25 years worked at Larsa’s, the Mediterranean street food business that for many years had been attached to a BP gas station not far from Cafe Zaytun’s location near Big Timber Road and McLean Boulevard. —Mike Danahey, Chicago Tribune, 13 Mar. 2026

There would be long flights, days in the sun of Delhi and in the potentially cold and rainy mountains of Rajasthan, dusty and packed queues to get into mosques and palaces, and time spent exploring street food stalls and markets. —Alexandra Pereira, Travel + Leisure, 12 Mar. 2026

Sublime street food and a stylish setting have made this second act from the duo behind Daru an instant hit. —Elazar Sontag, Washington Post, 12 Mar. 2026

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