Dictionary:

shish kebab

  (shĭsh' kə-bŏb')

A dish consisting of pieces of seasoned meat and sometimes vegetables roasted on skewers and served with condiments.

[Armenian shish kabab, from Turkish şiş kebabı : şiş, skewer + kebabı, qualifying (possessive) form of kebap, roasted meat (probably from Arabic kabāb, cooked meat in small pieces, possibly from Aramaic kabbābā, burning, charring, from kabbeb, to char, roast, probably from Akkadian kabābu, to burn).]

[SHIHSH kuh-bob] Chunks of marinated meat (sometimes fish) and vegetables that are threaded on a skewer and grilled or broiled. Also called shashlik.

Does shish kebab ring a bell? Or perhaps even make your mouth water? If so, it's thanks to both the Armenians and the Turks. These two neighbors in the vicinity of Mt. Ararat, where Noah parked his ark, have had unfriendly relations, to say the least, and they have unrelated languages too. But both make shish kebab, and together they have made it part of our language and culture.

In Turkish, the word is siskebabiu, where sis is a skewer or spit and kebap is roast meat. In Armenian, it's shish kabab, a little closer to our pronunciation. Apparently the word and the food originated long ago in Turkey and long ago became an Armenian favorite as well. The English-language version could well have come from Armenia along with the many Armenian immigrants to the English-speaking world in the twentieth century.

That is how Sinclair Lewis introduced it to Americans in 1914 in his first novel, Our Mr. Wrenn. The eponymous hero, having just inherited a thousand dollars, takes his landlady's daughter to an Armenian restaurant below 30th Street in Manhattan. "Shish kibub! Who ever heard of such a thing!" exclaims his guest. "What is that shish kibub?" "Kebab," Wrenn replies. "It's lamb roasted on skewers. I know you'll like it." Lee Theresa Zapp won't even try it, but that just shows her ignorance. Nowadays Miss Theresa would know better. She'd find Armenian restaurants even in Fresno, California, and West Bend, Wisconsin.

Armenia considers itself the first country to have converted to Christianity, some 1700 years ago. Its language belongs to our Indo-European family but in a branch by itself. Most of Armenia's population of three and a half million speak Armenian, and both Russia and Georgia have half a million Armenian speakers. No other Armenian words are in the general vocabulary of English.

Meat roasted over open fires on skewers.

The origin of shish kebab is lost in antiquity, but given the swordlike skewers so common in the Middle East, it probably originated with Turkish horse-men cooking wild game over open fires. In Turkish, shish kebab means "gobbets of meat roasted on a spit or skewer"; the Arabs call it lahm mishwi, grilled lamb.

The threading of vegetables - onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and peppers - onto the skewer, interspersed with meat, appears to be a modern restaurant introduction.

— CLIFFORD A. WRIGHT

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables
  Synonyms: kabob, kebab