Desi ghee in English, Hindi and Indian languages: names and meaning

As IFCT 2017 lists them, language by language: English ghee; Marathi tup; Punjabi ghyo; Odia ghia; Kannada tuppa; Telugu neyyi; Tamil nei; Malayalam neyy; Sanskrit ghrita. For Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Assamese and Urdu, IFCT lists no name, so the table marks a dash in those rows rather than a guess. Two spellings are added as variants: toop for Marathi tup, and ney for the Tamil and Malayalam nei and neyy. Every row traces to the IFCT 2017 names list for ghee, and the table below carries the same rows with the variants noted.

Source: IFCT 2017 (ICMR-NIN) local-names list. — means no name recorded in the source.

Marathi ‘Toop’: spelling variant of the IFCT 2017 name ‘Tup’. Tamil ‘Ney’: spelling variant of the IFCT 2017 name ‘Nei’. Malayalam ‘Ney’: spelling variant of the IFCT 2017 name ‘Neyy’.

Desi ghee in English is ghee — the IFCT 2017 English name is the everyday word, so nothing is lost in translation. Ghee has no botanical name, because it is made from milk rather than grown; it is the fat of milk. The word desi is usually read as setting this ghee apart from vanaspati: ICMR-NIN describes vanaspati, the hydrogenated vegetable fat, as a substitute used for ghee or butter in cooking and in the preparation of sweets, snack foods and bakery products, and a 2010 paper in AYU calls it vegetable ghee and records 40 percent trans fatty acids in it. So desi ghee is the traditional milk-fat product, while vanaspati is a vegetable fat that imitates it, and the guidelines ask households to avoid partially hydrogenated fats as the cooking medium, as they may carry trans-fats and saturated fats.

North and West India

Punjabi calls it ghyo. Marathi calls it tup, also spelt toop. Gujarati, Bengali and Assamese have no IFCT entry, and Hindi and Urdu have none either, which is why the table marks a dash. The Sanskrit name IFCT lists is ghrita.

East and South India

In Odia the ghee is ghia. Kannada says tuppa, Telugu neyyi, Tamil nei, Malayalam neyy — and the last two are also written ney. The spellings are transliterations of the same names, not different foods: every one of them names the same clarified butter. A 2024 review of ghee research calls it a traditional milk product of cultural importance in India, with extensive use in the country's cuisines; One food, many words.

Desi: made from milk, as against vanaspati, the vegetable substitute the guidelines tell households not to cook with, since it may carry trans-fats and saturated fats.

Pure: a promise against adulteration, and the concern is real: the 2024 Begum and Jain review records that ghee is repeatedly mixed with vanaspati, synthetic materials or animal fats. ICMR-NIN's rule of thumb is to buy butter and ghee from reliable sources only.

A2: a milk word. The beta-casein of the source milk exists in A1 and A2 versions that differ at one position in the chain, and early research found Indian native cows carried only the A2 version. The USDA entry for ghee shows 0 g of protein per 100 g, so A2 is a claim about the milk and the herd, not the fat.

Three neighbours on the same shelf. Butter is the stage before ghee: ghee is butter simmered until its water has boiled off and its milk solids have been browned and strained away, which is why ghee is generally lactose-free while butter still carries its milk solids. Makkhan is the butter that comes off the churn, and it becomes ghee when it is heated and strained; makkhan and ghee are different stages of the same milk fat, not different foods. Vanaspati is not dairy at all: the hydrogenated vegetable fat sold as a ghee substitute, with 40 percent trans fatty acids on record in the AYU paper. To make the difference clear at home, turning butter into ghee at home shows the method, and desi ghee roti puts the real article to work. The making, nutrition and uses of ghee itself are in the bilona ghee guide.

What is desi ghee?

Desi ghee is clarified butter made from milk: the milk is churned to butter and the butter is simmered until the water and milk solids are gone, leaving clear golden fat. The word desi sets it apart from vanaspati, the vegetable fat sold as a ghee substitute, and IFCT 2017 lists it simply as ghee.

What is desi ghee made of?

Milk, and in the jar almost nothing but milk fat. Ghee is 100 g of fat per 100 g in USDA FoodData Central's entry, with 0 g of protein and 0 g of carbohydrate; the water and the milk solids are removed during the simmering and straining. Desi ghee on a label usually means the milk-fat product, not a vegetable imitation.

What is A2 ghee?

A2 ghee is ghee whose milk came from A2-only cows. A2 is a milk-protein word: beta-casein exists in an A1 and an A2 version that differ at a single point in the chain, and early studies found native Indian cows carried only the A2 version. Because the USDA entry shows 0 g of protein per 100 g, the A2 label describes the milk and the herd it came from.

What is ghee called in English?

Ghee. IFCT 2017 lists ghee as the English name, and English-language recipes say ghee or clarified butter. Clarified butter is the descriptive English term: USDA FoodData Central's entry is titled butter, clarified butter (ghee). In other Indian languages the same food is tup, ghyo, ghia, tuppa, neyyi, nei and neyy.

Are neyyi, nei, neyy and ney the same word?

They name the same ghee in different scripts and spellings. IFCT lists neyyi for Telugu, nei for Tamil and neyy for Malayalam, and ney is a spelling variant of the Tamil and Malayalam names. The table above lists ney as a spelling variant of both, and every row traces to the IFCT names list.