soup
Americannoun
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soups
plural
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a liquid food made by boiling or simmering meat, fish, or vegetables with various added ingredients.
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Slang. a thick fog.
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Slang. added power, especially horsepower.
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Slang. nitroglycerin.
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Photography Slang. developing solution.
verb phrase
idioms
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in the soup, in trouble.
He'll be in the soup when the truth comes out.
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from soup to nuts,
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from the first through the last course of a meal.
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from beginning to end; to a complete, encompassing degree; leaving nothing out.
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noun
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a liquid food made by boiling or simmering meat, fish, vegetables, etc, usually served hot at the beginning of a meal
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informal a photographic developer
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informal anything resembling soup in appearance or consistency, esp thick fog See also peasouper
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a slang name for nitroglycerine
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informal in trouble or difficulties
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of soup
1645–55; 1940–45 soup for def. 6; < French soupe, Old French souppe, sope < Germanic; compare Dutch sopen to dunk. See sop
Explanation
Soup is a liquid or thick, creamy food that's usually hot and savory. If you have a sore throat, your grandma might make you a nice bowl of chicken noodle soup. Most soup is made by cooking vegetables, beans, meat, or fish (or a combination of these) in water for a long time. Sometimes soup is thickened with cream or flour, or by pureeing some of the ingredients. Certain soups, like gazpacho and vichyssoise, are served cold, and others are sweet and made with fruit. You may hear people describe a dense, thick fog as "pea soup" or use the phrase "soup to nuts" to mean "everything."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Warner Bros. is a top operator and yet has been passed around like a dented can of mushroom soup.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
"In this soup of quark-gluon plasma, there are numerous quarks and gluons passing by and colliding with each other," Lee explains.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026
I first really understood this while making Alison Roman’s dill-packed potato-leek soup, published originally a little over five years ago, which finishes with white wine vinegar.
From Salon ● Oct. 5, 2026
The world's largest jewellery brand showed off bracelet charms featuring Vietnam's national flag and a bowl of pho noodle soup as it opened a manufacturing centre in the country on Thursday, its first outside Thailand.
From Barron's ● Oct. 1, 2026
Carefully she lifted the tray and carried the bowl of rich red soup to the soothsayer.
From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood
I use it constantly for smoothies and soups or pesto.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
Starchy soups feel less pasty on the tongue.
From Salon ● Oct. 5, 2026
I use a Copco enamel pot I got on eBay for rice and soups.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
The trophy is a giant version of the traditional wooden tool used for stirring porridge, thick soups, and stew.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
They fed her special soups and brushed her hair, and Estella began to look like herself again, only smaller.
From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez
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.
