biscuit - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

A soft and flaky American biscuit (2) on the left and a hard British biscuit (1) on the right.

This American biscuit (2) has been broken open to show its interior; honey is being drizzled onto it.

The hard, flat, baked goods in tins like these are sometimes sold as biscuits (1) even in America, not just in the UK.

La Nourrice biscuit (5) after Louis Boizot.

PIE word
*dwóh₁

Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁

Proto-Indo-European *dwís

Early Medieval Latin bis

English biscuit

From earlier bisket, from Middle English bisquyte, from Old French bescuit (French biscuit); doublet of biscotto.

biscuit (countable and uncountable, plural biscuits)

  1. (UK, India, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, sometimes Canada, uncommon in the US and the Philippines) A small, flat, baked good which is either hard and crisp or else soft but firm; a cookie.
    • 1992 October 3, Edwina Currie, Diary:
      Weighed myself at the gym and have hit 10st 8lb, a sure sign of things getting out of control—so I can’t even console myself with a chocolate biscuit.
  2. (chiefly Canada, US, rare in Scotland and Guernsey) A small, usually soft and flaky bread, generally made with baking soda, which is similar in texture to a scone but which is usually not sweet.
  3. (UK, Ireland, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia) A cracker.
    cheese and biscuits
    digestive biscuits
  4. (especially nautical) Any of several hard bread or breadlike foodstuffs, especially those formerly supplied to naval ships and armies, made with very little water, kneaded into flat cakes, and slowly baked, and which often became infested with weevils.
    Hyponyms: ship's biscuit, ship biscuit, ship bread, sea biscuit, sea bread, hardtack, soft tack
    Near-synonyms: tack, bread
  5. A form of unglazed earthenware.
    Synonyms: biscuitware, biscuitry
    • 1791, Erasmus Darwin, The Economy of Vegetation, J. Johnson, page 87:
      Charm'd by your touch, the kneaded clay refines, / The biscuit hardens, the enamel shines […] .
    • 1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 202:
      In 1740, Thomas Whieldon of Little Fenton made 'toys' in either the clay or biscuit state. They were coloured with zaffre, copper, manganese, etc. and glazed with black, red or white lead.
    • 2004, Frank Hamer with Janet Hamer, The Potter's Dictionary of Materials and Techniques, 5th edition, London; Philadelphia, Penn.: A & C Black; University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 248:
      An overfired biscuit has insufficient porosity for glazing.
  6. A light brown colour.
    biscuit:
  7. (woodworking) A thin oval wafer of wood or other material inserted into mating slots on pieces of material to be joined to provide gluing surface and strength in shear.
    Synonyms: dowel, finger joint, glue strip, spline
  8. (US, slang) A plastic card bearing the codes for authorizing a nuclear attack.
  9. (US, slang, hiphop, music) A handgun, especially a revolver.
    • 2007, Army of the Pharaohs, “Bloody Tears”, in Ritual of Battle:
      I shoot my biscuit in the air until the sky is gone
  10. (ice hockey, shuffleboard) A puck (hockey puck).
  11. (slang) The head.
  1. (New Zealand) An inner tube used in the sport of tubing, or biscuiting.
  2. (US, slang) A young woman.

small bread similar to scone

ship's "bread"

form of earthenware

woodworking: wafer to provide gluing surface

biscuit (third-person singular simple present biscuits, present participle biscuiting, simple past and past participle biscuited)

  1. (transitive) To fire (pottery) in a kiln, without a ceramic glaze.
  2. (New Zealand, intransitive) To take part in the sport of tubing, riding down a river on an inner tube.

Borrowed from French biscuit. Doublet of beschuit.

biscuit n (plural biscuits, diminutive biscuitje n)

  1. biscuit (cookie)

Inherited from Middle French biscuit, from Old French bescuit, from Early Medieval Latin biscoctus (literally “twice-baked”). Doublet of biscotte and biscotto.

biscuit m (plural biscuits)

  1. biscuit (cookie)

Unadapted borrowing from French biscuit. Doublet of biscotto.

biscuit m (invariable)

  1. biscuit (white earthenware)
  2. wafer (for ice cream)

Inherited from Old French bescuit, from Early Medieval Latin biscoctus (“twice baked”), from bis + coctus.

biscuit m (plural biscuits)

  1. biscuit

Unadapted borrowing from French biscuit. Doublet of biscoito.

biscuit m (uncountable)

  1. biscuit; biscuitware
    Synonym: porcelana fria

Borrowed from French biscuit. Doublet of pișcot, which came from Hungarian.

biscuit m (plural biscuiți)

  1. biscuit, cookie
  2. biscuit (white earthenware)