dumpling
/ˈdʌmp.lɪŋ/ noun
Forms dumplings
- noun (chiefly UK) Specifically, a ball of dough used in stews and other sauced dishes; a thick noodle.
- noun (chiefly US) Specifically, a food composed of a dough wrapper around a filling.
- noun (endearing) A term of endearment. “My little dumpling.”
- noun (mildly vulgar) A piece of excrement.
Synonyms
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”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun A roundish mass of dough boiled in soup, or as a sort of pudding; often, a cover of paste inclosing an apple or other fruit, and boiled or baked; as, an apple dumpling.
Etymology [Dimin. of dump an illshapen piece; cf. D. dompelen to plunge, dip, duck, Scot. to dump in to plunge into, and E. dump, v. t.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “dumpling”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details