piccalilli

21 October 2026

Piccalilli is a pickle consisting of chopped vegetables, mustard, and spices. In early use it was also commonly referred to as Indian pickle. The origin is uncertain. The picca- is probably a variation on pickle, and the -lilli is likely either a variation on chili or simply an arbitrary addition.

It appears in the mid eighteenth century and takes several forms in early use: paco-lilla, peccalillo, picalillo, piccalillo, and piccalilli. By the late eighteenth century, the spelling standardized on piccalilli. And in in the southern United States it is sometimes spelled pickalilly or pickylilly, varying through folk etymology, that is altering an unfamiliar word to make it seem more familiar.

The earliest use of the term that I’m aware of is from the 1758 sixth edition of Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery, in which a section header reads:

To make paco-lilla, or Indian pickle, the same the mangos come over in.

Another early use is in Elizabeth Raffald’s 1769 The Experienced English House-keeper:

To make Indian Pickle, or Piccalillo.

Sources:

Dictionary of American Regional English Online, 2013, s.v. piccalilli, n.

Glasse, Hannah (pseud. “A Lady”). The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, sixth ed. London: Printed for A. Millar and T. Trye, 1758, 377. Archive.org.  

Oxford English Dictionary Online, March 2006, s.v. piccalilli, n.

Raffald, Elizabeth. The Experienced English House-keeper. Manchester: J. Harrep, 1769, 337. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Photo credit: Kolforn, 2020. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.