bake

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bake

  • /beɪk/ US, UK
  • /bæɪk/ Australia, New Zealand
  • /bek/ Scotland
  • /beːk/ Wales

Rhymes with -eɪk

Where it comes from

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₃g-

Proto-Indo-European *bʰh₃g-

Proto-Germanic *bakaną

Proto-West Germanic *bakan

Old English bacan

Middle English baken

English bake

From Middle English baken, from Old English bacan (“to bake”), from Proto-West Germanic *bakan, from Proto-Germanic *bakaną (“to bake”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₃g- (“to roast, bake”).

Cognate with West Frisian bakke (“to bake”), Dutch bakken (“to bake”), Low German backen (“to bake”), German backen (“to bake”), Norwegian Bokmål bake (“to bake”), Danish bage (“to bake”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish baka (“to bake”), Ancient Greek φώγω (phṓgō, “roast”, verb).

verb bakes · baking · baked · book

  1. ditransitive, intransitive, transitive To cook (something) in an oven (for someone). I baked a delicious cherry pie.
  2. intransitive To be cooked in an oven. The cake baked at 350°F.
  3. intransitive To regularly prepare baked goods. In some cultures, it is expected that a proper housewife should bake.
  4. figuratively, intransitive, slang To smoke marijuana. (Let's bake tonight.)
  5. figuratively To incorporate into something greater. Disagreements between pilots' unions are baked into the merger cake.
  6. intransitive To be warmed for drying and hardening. The clay baked in the sun.
  7. transitive To dry by heat. They baked the electrical parts lightly to remove moisture.
  8. figuratively, intransitive To be hot. It is baking in the greenhouse.
  9. figuratively, transitive To cause to be hot. My dad told me about his days in the Navy: He'd agreed to be a guinea pig in exchange for a shorter enlistment. […] They baked him in the sun.
  10. broadly, obsolete, transitive To harden by cold. The earth […] is baked with frost.
  11. transitive To fix (lighting, reflections, etc.) as part of the texture of an object to improve rendering performance.

noun bakes

  1. The act of cooking food by baking. Taking one of her cakes or a tray of biscuits from the oven always gives her satisfaction and a moment of pride; that is, of course, unless there happens to be some little element that doesn't please her with the bake.
  2. Australia, New Zealand, UK, especially Any of various baked dishes resembling casserole. A fish bake made with cod chunks, sliced parboiled potatoes, […]
  3. Any food item that is baked, such as a pastry. bake pan
  4. US A social event at which food (such as seafood) is baked, or at which baked food is served. an oyster bake on the shore
  5. Barbados, UK, US, sometimes A small, flat (or ball-shaped) cake of dough eaten mainly in Barbados, similar in appearance and ingredients to a pancake but fried (or sometimes roasted). For quotations using this term, see Citations:bake.

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