[ra88it]

In English, "spicy" (usually) means that it will cause your tongue to burn and/or tingle due to the effects of chili pepper or black pepper or hot mustard or anything that causes your mouth to react with what I would call a physical sensation rather than a flavor sensation (of course they are not entirely distinct but that is where I draw the line).

Many dishes contain a lot of spices (nutmeg, cardamom, clove, etc.) but they aren't considered "spicy" because there's no sensation of heat/burning. These dishes are "spiced" but not "spicy" (in English).

It doesn't necessarily make sense, but that is just how common usage has evolved.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

OK. Well, I've been using it wrong then :)

Truth be told, in Greek also, where we have lots of dishes with many spices (and some which are made with specific spices, like pastitsada) we don't have a special word for "food with lots of spices" either. We just use the circumlocution.

[nescoiquid]

> We just use the circumlocution.

I think it is an ambiguous category. At least to native (American) English speakers and heathens like me. The only evidence I can offer of this is that in my language culture, I routinely hear "spicy hot", and often enough when one should simply say "spicy", anticipate the question "spicy hot"?

That qualifies as a circumlocution to me. BTW, I didn't think you Greeks learned Latin since all the classy Romans wanted to speak Greek ;-)

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Ah, that's a good point. I'm sure I've heard that question often- "spichy hot?". Kind of like "funny weird or funny ha-ha?".

>> That qualifies as a circumlocution to me. BTW, I didn't think you Greeks learned Latin since all the classy Romans wanted to speak Greek ;-)

Oh, actually I learned some Latin in high school, most of which is now forgotten. But, I was surprised by that turn of phrase myself: I was trying to translate from the Greek in my head to English and suddendly a bit of Latin fell out :)

Edit: Also, to be fair, I love surprising my native English speaker interlocutors with weird little bits of English they never use and which I know because I first learned English not as my everyday language, but from books and textbooks. It helps that some of those weird bits are well, Greek. e.g. I surprised my thesis advisor the other day when I used the Greek plural of "lemma", "lemmata" which turns out to be perfectly correct English, although it's not often used. My advisor suggested I refrain from using such obscure words in papers since most reviewers would probably be confused by them and be annoyed at me- and you don't want to piss off reviewers!

[genoapol]

>OK. Well, I've been using it wrong then :)

You are actually correct, it's the English that use the word wrong.

Spicey should be a measure of the variety of spices used... A very small % of people from spice rich countries would consider pepper a primary or default "spice".

[phonypc]

It's an English word. Maybe it doesn't jibe with your concept of spices, but you can hardly say native English speakers are using the word wrong.

[genoapol]

It doesn't make logical sense.

I suspect this misuse is due to the early 12th-16th century English population's ignorance of the complexity of global spice markets and black pepper being one of the first popularized spices once trade routes expanded.

Peppery would make much more sense.