noun
- Dried, cured meat, typically beef, cut into strips; jerky.
Usage: From Spanish, borrowed from Quechua ch'arki; Also spelled charque or charqui; Historical and regional term; jerky is the modern standard English equivalent
Examples
- The Spanish conquistadors preserved meat as charqui for long journeys across the Americas.
- Charqui was an important food source for Andean peoples long before European contact.
- The word charqui eventually evolved into the English term jerky.
- Travelers in colonial South America relied on charqui as a portable protein source.