Pudding

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈpʊd.ɪŋ/

Definitions

1. A soft, usually sweet dish prepared by cooking milk and a thickening agent, which can be enjoyed as a dessert or sweet course after a meal
2. A sweet dish that is typically creamy and is made by cooking a mixture of milk and a thickening agent, often served as a dessert following the main meal
3. A creamy or soft sweet dessert prepared by heating milk combined with a thickening ingredient ; a dish often cooked by boiling or steaming, containing meat or savory components wrapped in a batter or casing

Etymology: The sweet dessert came later than the sausage. In Middle English, "pudding" meant a kind of sausage or a meat-filled animal stomach, first recorded around 1305, and the dessert sense only developed afterwards. The word was borrowed from Old French "boudin", meaning blood sausage, which is also the source of the English doublet "boudin". Old French had in turn taken it from Latin "botellus", a word for sausage or small intestine. Some dictionaries offer a rival account in which the word grows from a Germanic root meaning "to swell", linked to dialect English "pod" for belly and to Low German forms for swollen lumps and black pudding. The Old French link is the more widely accepted pathway, but the Germanic idea explains why a stuffed, swollen casing was such a natural name for the dish.

Synonyms: dessert, custard, mousse, flan, gelatin

Antonyms: main course, entree, savory, appetizer, snack