dumpling

Pronunciation: /ˈdʌmp.lɪŋ/

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun small balls or strips of boiled or steamed dough
  2. noun dessert made by baking fruit wrapped in pastry

Etymology

A folk word, first attested in c. 1600s, apparently from a Norfolk (East Anglian) dialect, of uncertain origin: * perhaps from some Low German word (compare dümpeln (“bobbing up and down”)), * or from the rare dialectal adjective dump (“lump, of the consistency of dough”) (first attested in the late 1800s), + -ling (diminutive suffix), although dumpling is recorded much earlier. However, compare dumpy (“short and stout”).

In classic literature

Synonyms

dumplings

Semantic network

Broader (hypernyms)
pasta
Narrower (hyponyms)
won ton, gnocchi, matzo ball

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