How to pronounce tzatziki

Short answer: say tsat-SEE-kee (/tsætˈsiːki/): the "ts" of cats, a stressed "SEE", then "kee". The Cambridge Dictionary gives this for American and British English, and the Oxford English Dictionary for British English. Dictionary.com and American Heritage write it tsah-TSEE-kee. In Greek, τζατζίκι is dzah-DZEE-kee ([dzaˈdzici]), with "dz" instead of "ts", and Merriam-Webster lists a similar dzahd-ZEE-kee first.

Listen

Is the T in tzatziki silent?

Cambridge, Oxford, Dictionary.com and American Heritage say no: they start the word with "ts" or "t". Greek starts it with "dz":

Merriam-Webster puts the first T or D in parentheses, its sign for a sound some speakers leave out, and Wiktionary lists British versions without it, such as sa-TSEE-kee. All versions stress the middle syllable.

Tzatziki was the first entry on a 2016 list of 20 commonly mispronounced foreign foods from the Co-op and the Oxford English Dictionary, which spelled it out as "TSAT-SI-KI". In a 2024 OnePoll survey of 2,000 British adults for the bakery brand St Pierre, it came second on a list of 30 foreign words Brits find hardest to say, after hygge. That was a brand poll, not a scientific survey.

One American chain changed the spelling instead. Keith and Amy Richards, who opened the first Taziki's Mediterranean Café in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1998, named it after the sauce but dropped a Z and a T to make it easier for customers.

So which tzatziki pronunciation should you use? tsat-SEE-kee is the safe choice in both American and British English. To sound closer to Greek, say dzah-DZEE-kee.

Why is tzatziki pronounced "tsat-SEE-kee"?

The word traveled from Turkish to Greek to English, changing at each step:

• Turkish cacık. The Turkish letter c is the "j" in joy, so cacık has two "j" sounds. Merriam-Webster traces it to a 17th-century word for an edible herb, and the Turkish etymologist Sevan Nişanyan finds it as yogurt with cucumber and garlic in an 1844 Ottoman cookbook. Its deeper origin is unclear: American Heritage and Nişanyan link it to a Persian word for edible wild plants.
• Greek τζατζίκι. Greek added its own ending, -ι. Standard Greek has no "j" sound, so the word has "dz" there instead, written τζ (tau and zeta): cacık became τζατζίκι, dzah-DZEE-kee, stressed where the accent mark is.
• English tzatziki. English copied the letters one by one: τ is t and ζ is z. But in English spelling, tz is "ts", as in blitz and quartz, and that's how Cambridge and the Oxford English Dictionary start the word: tsat-SEE-kee. Merriam-Webster dates the first known use in English to 1960, the year of the Oxford English Dictionary's earliest example, from a cookbook by Robin Howe.

That's the spelling trap: tz stands for a Greek "dz", but English readers see "ts".

How to say tzatziki step by step

1. Start with "ts", the end of cats, plus "at": tsat. It's one quick sound, not a T and then a Z. For Greek, use the "dz" at the end of kids and an open "ah": dzah.
2. Stress the middle syllable: SEE, a long "ee" as in see. In Greek, it's DZEE.
3. Finish with a light "kee", as in key. Greek speakers make this K with the middle of the tongue, so it sounds close to "kyee".

Put it together: tsat-SEE-kee. Don't stress the first syllable: no dictionary above does.

Practice in a sentence

• Can I get extra tzatziki with my souvlaki?
• Is the T in tzatziki silent? No: tsat-SEE-kee.
• In Greek, it's dzah-DZEE-kee, from the Turkish cacık.

Then try other Greek food words. American pronunciations, from the Cambridge Dictionary:

See also gyro and hyperbole, two more Greek words, and the food words bruschetta and gnocchi.

What is tzatziki?

Tzatziki is a cold dip or sauce of yogurt, cucumber and garlic, with olive oil, vinegar, salt and herbs such as dill or mint. In Greece it's served as a meze with pita or bread, and as a sauce for gyros and souvlaki. Greek tzatziki is made with strained yogurt, usually from sheep or goat milk, while Turkish cacık mixes yogurt with water, garlic and herbs. Related dishes include talattouri in Cyprus, tarator, a cold soup in Bulgaria, and raita in South Asia.

Sources

• Merriam-Webster — tzatziki; Guide to Pronunciation, parentheses
• Cambridge Dictionary — tzatziki; Oxford Learner's Dictionaries — tzatziki
• Oxford English Dictionary — tzatziki (archived copy); Mental Floss — How to pronounce tzatziki, September 2025 (Howe's cookbook)
• Dictionary.com — tzatziki; American Heritage Dictionary — tzatziki
• Wiktionary — tzatziki, τζατζίκι and cacık; Greek Wiktionary — τζατζίκι, the -ι ending; Nişanyan Sözlük — cacık
• Wikipedia — Tzatziki, Modern Greek phonology, Greek orthography, Greek diacritics, Romanization of Greek, Turkish alphabet, English orthography
• Stylist — the 20 most commonly mispronounced foreign foods, January 2016
• Yorkshire Post — three in 10 Brits can't pronounce foreign words, December 2024 (archived copy)
• Nation's Restaurant News — Breakout brands 2014: Taziki's, February 2014; Wikipedia — Taziki's Mediterranean Café