biscuit

¹ American  

[bis-kit] / ˈbɪs kɪt /

noun

1. a kind of bread in small, soft cakes, raised with baking powder or soda, or sometimes with yeast; scone.

2. Chiefly British.

   1. a dry and crisp or hard bread in thin, flat cakes, made without yeast or other raising agent; a cracker.

   2. a cookie.

3. a pale-brown color.

4. Also called bisque.  Ceramics. unglazed earthenware or porcelain after firing.

5. Also called preform.  a piece of plastic or the like, prepared for pressing into a phonograph record.

---

adjective

1. having the color biscuit.

biscuit ² American  

[bees-kwee] / bisˈkwi /

noun

French.

1. a cookie or cracker.

---

biscuit British  

/ ˈbɪskɪt /

noun

1. US and Canadian word: cookie.  a small flat dry sweet or plain cake of many varieties, baked from a dough

2. a kind of small roll similar to a muffin

3. 1. a pale brown or yellowish-grey colour

   2. ( as adjective )

      biscuit gloves

4. Also called: bisque.  earthenware or porcelain that has been fired but not glazed

5. slang to be regarded (by the speaker) as the most surprising thing that could have occurred

---

Other Word Forms

• biscuitlike adjective

Etymology

Origin of biscuit

1300–50; Middle English bysquyte < Middle French biscuit ( Medieval Latin biscoctus ), variant of bescuit seamen's bread, literally, twice cooked, equivalent to bes bis ¹ + cuit, past participle of cuire < Latin coquere to cook ¹

Example Sentences

I looked down at the plate of ham, boiled beans and fluffy biscuits.

From Literature

He stood below, handing them up to us while leaning on a chair, and gave me money to go and buy the biscuits and sweets he usually lavished on us at Christmas.

From Literature

"We get really nice fruit and veg in, biscuits - last week we had some really nice rump steak which went down a storm."

From BBC

There was a beautiful, moist nut cake, and fresh cinnamon twists, and a plate of biscuits still hot from the oven.

From Literature

The message from Cracker Barrel management went down like a stale biscuit.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• camel
• cream
• khaki
• off-white
• tan
• taupe