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

Balti Jaam combines traditional food counters with street food, Estonian crafts, clothing and antiques. — David Nikel, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2026

Field recordings—from the preparation of street food to birds chirping, taken mostly in public spaces around Doha—are a kind of sonic memory of a place that is rapidly changing. — Shanti Escalante-De Mattei, ARTnews.com, 3 Aug. 2026

The South Asian street food is usually savory, but Cho has transformed it into a sweet treat with hazelnut praline and dark chocolate milk. — Connie Ogle july 31, Miami Herald, 31 July 2026

Other menu items include Boerewors, a South African sausage; Bunny Chow, a street food made with bread that’s filled with a choice of a protein and spices; and premium steak and seafood. — Fousia Abdullahi, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 24 July 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