bake
Americanverb (used with object)
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to cook by dry heat in an oven or on heated metal or stones.
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to harden by heat.
to bake pottery in a kiln.
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to dry by, or subject to heat.
The sun baked the land.
verb (used without object)
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to bake bread, a casserole, etc.
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to become baked.
The cake will bake in about half an hour.
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to be subjected to heat.
The lizard baked on the hot rocks.
noun
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a social occasion at which the chief food is baked.
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Scot. cracker.
verb phrase
verb
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(tr) to cook by dry heat in or as if in an oven
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(intr) to cook bread, pastry, etc, in an oven
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to make or become hardened by heat
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informal (intr) to be extremely hot, as in the heat of the sun
noun
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a party at which the main dish is baked
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a batch of things baked at one time
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a kind of biscuit
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a small flat fried cake
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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prebakeverb
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underbakeverb (used with object)
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outbakeverb (used with object)
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well-bakedadjective
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rebakeverb (used with object)
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unbakedadjective
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overbakeverb
Conjugated Forms
Present
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has bakedperfect 3rd person singular
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have bakedperfect
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am bakingprogressive 1st person singular
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have been bakingperfect progressive
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is bakingprogressive 3rd person singular
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has been bakingperfect progressive 3rd person singular
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bakessingular 3rd person
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are bakingprogressive
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bakingparticiple
Past
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had bakedperfect
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was bakingprogressive singular
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were bakingprogressive plural
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had been bakingperfect progressive
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bakedsimple
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bakedparticiple
Future
Etymology
Origin of bake
First recorded before 1000; Middle English baken, Old English bacan; cognate with Old High German bahhan, Old Norse baka; akin to Dutch bakken, German backen, Greek phṓgein “to roast”; from Proto-Indo-European extended root bhēg-, bhōg- “to warm, roast”
Explanation
To bake something is to cook it in a hot oven. When you bake a batch of blueberry muffins, your whole house smells delicious. Whether you bake some cookies for dessert, a casserole to take to a potluck supper, or bake a clay pot in a kiln, you cook with a relatively slow, dry heat. You can also use the word bake figuratively: "Are you going to move into the shade, or are you just going to bake in the sun all day?" The Old English word was bacan, from a Germanic root.
Vocabulary lists containing bake
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
