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n. A Chinese dish of stir-fried vegetables, egg, and often meat or fish served wrapped in a thin pancake. [From Mandarin mùxū(ròu), moo shoo (pork), from alteration (perhaps influenced by múxū, wood shavings, (mú, tree, wood + xū, whiskers), in reference to the slivers of meat and wood ears in the dish, and by mù, wood, short for mù'ěr, wood ear; see WOOD EAR) of earlier mùxīròu, literally "osmanthus pork,", from mùxī, osmanthus, an East Asian shrub (Osmanthus fragrans) bearing dense clusters of fragrant orangish or creamy yellow flowers : mù, tree + xī, osmanthus (the dish being so called because the scrambled eggs in the dish were thought to resemble osmanthus blossoms and also because of taboo avoidance of the word for "egg" (Mandarin dàn), used in many Chinese insults).] |
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