biscuit

¹ American  

[bees-kwee] / bisˈkwi /

noun

French.

1. a cookie or cracker.

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biscuit ² 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.

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adjective

1. having the color biscuit.

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

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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

“Maybe he’ll bite Gladys,” I said, “and there’s nothing wrong with dog biscuits. Everybody eats dog biscuits at least once to see what they taste like.”

From Literature

And if you do choose to feed hedgehogs use appropriate food, such as cat biscuits, and practice good hygiene, she said.

From BBC

Our classroom smelled faintly of pencil shavings and cafeteria biscuits.

From The Wall Street Journal

She now has a team of 14 in the bakery, sends her biscuits all over the country, and has partnered with a mail order flower firm.

From BBC

“There’s probably a mountain of boiled eggs in the dining room with our names on them. And biscuits with jam, too.”

From Literature

Related Words

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