ras·am (r?s??m)n. A thin soup of southern India, typically made with tomatoes, tamarind, and various spices including turmeric, coriander, cumin, and red chilies, often served with steamed rice.[From Tamil rasam, juice, flavor, rasam (Sanskrit rasa?, plant sap, fruit juice, essence; akin to Latin r?s, Lithuanian rasa, and Old Church Slavonic rosa, dew + Tamil -am, neuter singular noun ending), and probably also partly from Malayalam rasam (Sanskrit rasa? + Malayalam -am, neuter singular noun ending).]American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.