cake

pronunciation

How to pronounce cake in British English: UK [keɪk] word uk audio image

How to pronounce cake in American English: US [keɪk] word us audio image

Noun:

a block of solid substance (such as soap or wax)
small flat mass of chopped food
made from or based on a mixture of flour and sugar and eggs
Verb:

form a coat over

Word Origin

cake: cake: [13] Originally, cake was a term for a flat round loaf of bread (it is this ‘shape’ element in its meaning that lies behind more modern usages such as ‘cake of soap’). It is not until the 15th century that we find it being applied to foodstuffs we would now recognize as cakes, made with butter, eggs, and some sort of sweetening agent. English borrowed the word from Old Norse kaka; it is related to cookie (from Dutch koekje), but not, despite the similarity, to cook. The expression piece of cake ‘something easy’ seems to have originated in the 1930s.=> cookie

cake (n.): early 13c., from Old Norse kaka "cake," from West Germanic *kokon- (cognates: Middle Dutch koke, Dutch koek, Old High German huohho, German Kuchen). Not now believed to be related to Latin coquere "to cook," as formerly supposed. Replaced its Old English cognate, coecel. What man, I trow ye raue, Wolde ye bothe eate your cake and haue your cake? ["The Proverbs & Epigrams of John Heywood," 1562] Originally (until early 15c.) "a flat, round loaf of bread." Piece of cake "something easy" is from 1936. The let them eat cake story is found in Rousseau's "Confessions," in reference to an incident c. 1740, long before Marie Antoinette, though it has been associated with her since c. 1870; it apparently was a chestnut in the French royal family that had been told of other princesses and queens before her.