Definition

Noun: 1. The internal organs and entrails of a butchered animal: This refers to the parts of an animal, such as the heart, liver, kidneys, intestines, and sometimes the head and feet, that are removed when the animal is prepared for food. While often considered inedible or waste in some cultures, they are used as food in others. 2. Refuse or waste material; rubbish: In a broader, more figurative sense, it can refer to any worthless or discarded material.

Examples

• The butcher sells various types of offal, including liver and kidneys.
• In some traditional cuisines, dishes made from offal are considered delicacies.
• (Figurative) The critic dismissed the artist's early work as mere offal.

Advanced Usage

• "To make offal of someone/something": (Archaic/rare) To treat with contempt or to ruin.
  • The scandal made offal of his political career.
• The term is often used in a collective sense and is typically treated as an uncountable noun (e.g., "some offal," "a pile of offal").

Variants and Related Words

• Offal does not have common verb or adjective forms. Related concepts include:
  • Variety meats: A more polite or culinary term for edible internal organs.
  • Organ meats: A neutral, descriptive term.
  • Giblets: Specifically refers to the edible internal organs of poultry (heart, liver, gizzard).
  • Chitterlings: Specifically refers to the intestines of a pig, often prepared as food.

Synonyms

• Entrails
• Viscera
• Innards (informal)
• Guts (informal)
• Waste
• Refuse
• Rubbish

Phrasal Verbs

• There are no common phrasal verbs specifically formed with "offal."

Related Idioms

• There are no widely recognized idioms in modern English that centrally feature the word "offal." Its use is primarily literal or descriptive.

Noun

1. viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal often considered inedible by humans