A mixture of ground meat, herbs, and spices used as a filling or stuffing in cooking, especially French cuisine.
From Old French farce (from Latin farcire 'to stuff'), combined with meat. 'Farce' became 'force' in English over time, but retained its culinary meaning. This is a rare case where the same word root means completely different things: stuffing in cooking versus 'power' in general use.
Forcemeat is a linguistic orphan—it comes from the same Latin root as 'force' but split away centuries ago into French cooking terminology. The word reminds us that 'force' and 'farce' (as in stuffing/filling) share a common ancestor, making food and power etymologically connected!
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