🇵🇹Portuguese Source WordCode: PT

à carta

Pronunciation / Transliteration: ah karta

🇬🇧 Direct English Meaning:
À la carte/ˌɑː lə ˈkɑːt/
adjectiveadverbCEFR B2 (Upper)Top #4500 frequency
Full Thesaurus
🇵🇹 Example Sentence in Portuguese:

"Podemos escolher os pratos à carta."

Comprehensive Definitions & Senses

2 senses
As adjective
  1. 1

    Referring to food that can be ordered as separate items, each with its own price, rather than as part of a set meal.

    "We decided to order an à la carte dinner instead of the set menu."
As adverb
  1. 1

    With each dish priced and ordered separately.

    "The restaurant allows guests to dine à la carte on weekends."

Thesaurus & Semantic Spectrum

Antonyms & Contrasting Words (1)

Linguistic Origin & Historical Etymology

Borrowed directly from French, meaning literally 'according to the card' or 'according to the menu'. Dating back to the early 19th century in English gastronomy, the term evolved to describe ordering individual dishes separately rather than selecting a fixed-price set meal (table d'hôte).

Quick Vocabulary Retention Check

Which of the following is the closest synonym for "À la carte"?

Thesaurus & Synonyms Graph

Explore Nuanced Synonyms for "À la carte"

Discover exact matches, context-specific alternatives, and antonyms with intensity ratings in the VocabDictionary Thesaurus.

View "À la carte" Synonym Map