bake
Americanverb (used with object)
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bakes,
present (3rd person singular)
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baked,
past participle, past
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baking
present participle
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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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bakes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
baked,
past participle, past
-
baking
present participle
-
to bake bread, a casserole, etc.
-
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.
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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overbakeverb
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prebakeverb
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outbakeverb (used with object)
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rebakeverb (used with object)
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underbakeverb (used with object)
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unbakedadjective
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well-bakedadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bakesimple
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bakessimple
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have bakedperfect
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has bakedperfect
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am bakingprogressive
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are bakingprogressive
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is bakingprogressive
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have been bakingperfect progressive
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has been bakingperfect progressive
Past
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bakedsimple
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had bakedperfect
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was bakingprogressive
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were bakingprogressive
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had been bakingperfect progressive
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
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:
Bake: Top with cheese and bake, uncovered, for 30 to 35 minutes, until the rice is tender and the top lightly golden.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026
He said that share prices seem to bake in that the company will move backwards rather than progress toward this benchmark.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026
“A hot inflation print would very much increase the probability of a hike in September, but just one print isn’t going to bake it in the cake,” said Bradford Smith, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Ingredients to bake fairy cakes with buttercream icing usually cost between £10 and £15 - depending on what you already have in the cupboard.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
“Maybe we could have a bake sale for pets,” I say.
From "The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl" by Stacy McAnulty
As Europe bakes in yet another heatwave, German winegrower Florian Weingart has scattered straw on the ground to keep moisture trapped in the earth and protect his prized vines from extreme temperatures.
From Barron's ● Aug. 16, 2026
Analysts at KeyBanc suggested Monday that SpaceX’s stock price already bakes in sufficient optimism for the company’s ambitions.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026
The kind who hosts, who braises, who bakes?
From Salon ● Apr. 21, 2026
He explained that he and his wife had visited her mother June at her home in Kent last month, before heading home with a tub full of her homemade bakes.
From BBC ● Apr. 15, 2026
He bakes bread in a stone oven like those they used to have in Smyrna.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
Those risks aren’t new, however, and were at least partly baked into yields before the surge of recent days.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
Sobel, now chief economist at the independent Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, walked me through why the yuan’s cheapness is baked into the structure of the Chinese economy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
Others are already baked into pricing to come as a result of tariffs and fuel costs, including for groceries, experts said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
Last summer, as the region baked, the residents of Ellum Pointe - a whg scheme for the over-55s - began telling their landlords they simply could not cool their flats.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
Charlie’s as excited as me to see the salad, corn, baked chicken, mashed potatoes with tons of gravy, and soft, buttery rolls.
From "Isaiah Dunn Is My Hero" by Kelly J. Baptist
This high-temperature firing process works somewhat like baking clay in a kiln, causing the zirconia particles to fuse together and form a dense, hardened material.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 23, 2026
His apartment is baking and it is "impossible to live with all the mosquitoes."
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
With parts of the globe aflame in wildfires, deadly heat waves parking over cities, record hot oceans and a strengthening super El Niño, it seems like we’re baking through the hottest year on record.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Vibrant and intense, but light on the palate, with complex flavors and aromas of purple flowers, dried herbs, baking spices, raspberry and cranberry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
Lord Fredrick had placed an advertisement for a baby nurse before the full moon curse had come upon him, but bread baking?
From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood
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.
