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cake

Pronunciation: /keɪk/
Translate cake | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of cake

noun

  • 1an item of soft sweet food made from a mixture of flour, fat, eggs, sugar, and other ingredients, baked and sometimes iced or decorated:a fruit cake [as modifier]:a cake shop [mass noun]:a mouthful of cake
  • (the cake) British the amount of money or assets available to be divided up or shared:you have not received a fair slice of the education cake
  • 2an item of savoury food formed into a flat round shape, and typically baked or fried:a starter of goat’s cheese and potato cakes
  • a flattish compact mass of something, especially soap:a cake of soap

verb

[with object]
  • (of a thick or sticky substance that hardens when dry) cover and become encrusted on (the surface of an object):his clothes were caked in mud
  • [no object] (of a thick or sticky substance) dry or harden into a solid mass:the blood under his nose was beginning to cake

Phrases

cakes and ale

dated lively enjoyment: the gardener’s life, as a rule, is not all ‘cakes and ale’

a piece of cake

informal something easily achieved:I never said that training him would be a piece of cake

sell like hot cakes

British informal be sold quickly and in large quantities: T-shirts and posters are selling like hot cakes

take the cake

see take the biscuit at biscuit.

you can't have your cake and eat it (too)

proverb you can’t enjoy both of two desirable but mutually exclusive alternatives: the king wanted to have his cake and eat it—to marry Mrs Simpson and to remain on the throne

Derivatives

cakey

adjective

Origin:

Middle English (denoting a small flat bread roll): of Scandinavian origin; related to Swedish kaka and Danish kage

cake in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of cake in the US English dictionary

Nearby words

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