margarine
[mahr-jer-in, -juh-reen, mahrj-rin]
- a butterlike product made of refined vegetable oils, sometimes blended with animal fats, and emulsified, usually with water or milk.
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Origin of margarine
Also called oleomargarine.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for margarine
Contemporary Examples
The Girl Scouts uses palm oil to make its cookies, as do manufacturers of ice cream, crackers, packaged breads, and margarine.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla and the melted butter or margarine.
Historical Examples
Margarine and chlesterine, carbonates, sulphates, and ptomaines!
The Stark Munro LettersJ. Stark Munro
Margarine and jam were severely relegated to the list of luxuries.
The Dop DoctorClotilde Inez Mary Graves
His face was also like margarine, but of adulterated margarine, certainly.
The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8)Guy de Maupassant
Cocoanut butter is a cheap and excellent substitute for margarine or butter.
Papers on HealthJohn Kirk
Hastily she made the tea and went up with it and the bread and margarine.
TatterdemalionJohn Galsworthy
margarine
- a substitute for butter, prepared from vegetable and animal fats by emulsifying them with water and adding small amounts of milk, salt, vitamins, colouring matter, etc
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Word Origin
C19: from margaric
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for margarine
n.
butter substitute, 1873, from French margarine (see margarine). Invented 1869 by French scientist Hippolyte Mège-Mouries and made in part from edible fats and oils.
The "enterprising merchant" of Paris, who sells Margarine as a substitute for Butter, and does not sell his customers by selling it as Butter, and at Butter's value, has very likely found honesty to be the best policy. That policy might perhaps be adopted with advantage by an enterprising British Cheesemonger. ["Punch," Feb. 21, 1874]
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper