cake
Americannoun
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cakes
plural
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a sweet, baked, breadlike food, made with or without shortening, and usually containing flour, sugar, baking powder or soda, eggs, and liquid flavoring.
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a flat, thin mass of bread, especially unleavened bread.
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a shaped or molded mass of other food.
a fish cake.
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a shaped or compressed mass.
a cake of soap; a cake of ice.
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Animal Husbandry. a compacted block of soybeans, cottonseeds, or linseeds from which the oil has been pressed, usually used as a feed or feed supplement for cattle.
verb (used with object)
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cakes,
present (3rd person singular)
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caked,
past participle, past
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caking
present participle
verb (used without object)
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cakes,
present (3rd person singular)
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caked,
past participle, past
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caking
present participle
idioms
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take the cake,
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to surpass all others, especially in some undesirable quality; be extraordinary or unusual.
His arrogance takes the cake.
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to win first prize.
-
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a piece of cake, something easily done.
She thought her first solo flight was a piece of cake.
noun
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a baked food, usually in loaf or layer form, typically made from a mixture of flour, sugar, and eggs
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a flat thin mass of bread, esp unleavened bread
-
a shaped mass of dough or other food of similar consistency
a fish cake
-
a mass, slab, or crust of a solidified or compressed substance, as of soap or ice
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to enjoy both of two desirable but incompatible alternatives
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informal to be sold very quickly or in large quantities
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informal something that is easily achieved or obtained
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informal to surpass all others, esp in stupidity, folly, etc
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informal the whole or total of something that is to be shared or divided
the miners are demanding a larger slice of the cake
that is a fair method of sharing the cake
verb
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(tr) to cover with a hard layer; encrust
the hull was caked with salt
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to form or be formed into a hardened mass
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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cakesimple
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cakessimple
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have cakedperfect
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has cakedperfect
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am cakingprogressive
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are cakingprogressive
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is cakingprogressive
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have been cakingperfect progressive
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has been cakingperfect progressive
Past
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cakedsimple
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had cakedperfect
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was cakingprogressive
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were cakingprogressive
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had been cakingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cake
1200–50; Middle English < Old Norse kaka; akin to Middle English kechel little cake, German Kuchen; see cookie
Explanation
A cake is a baked dessert that's often topped with frosting or decorations. For many people, it's not a proper birthday without a birthday cake. Most cakes are made with flour, fat, a sweetener, and something to make the cake rise — like eggs or baking powder. You might prefer denser, richer cheesecakes or tiny, delicate cupcakes, or even a savory version made of potatoes and vegetables. If someone says, "Well, that takes the cake," they're expressing their surprise at something, and if you say, "That exam was a piece of cake," it as easy as eating a piece of cake.
Vocabulary lists containing cake
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:
“If we play our cards well, we can have our cake and eat it too,” Van Nieuwerburgh said.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 30, 2026
But an Oscar would be, as he puts it, “the cherry on top of the cake” — not the cake itself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2026
Network Rail invited locals to discuss the next steps over tea and cake this week.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
On week one of the competition, Mahir landed star baker after he stunned TV judges Nigella Lawson and Paul Hollywood with his peanut and caramel chocolate stout cake.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
“Cake, cake, everywhere, and not a slice for me,” she recited, using her poetic license to make the poem fit her own circumstances more neatly.
From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood
I tried a sample from a company called Voyage Foods, and I realized its strength is adding chocolaty vibes to cakes and confections, not replacing solid bars of milk chocolate, much less dark chocolate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026
Eventually, he was getting ghosted for food-preparation jobs, including at a company that sells frozen crab cakes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
Bouquets of banknotes or cakes decorated with currency are often ordered as gifts for weddings, birthdays, graduations and other celebrations.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
The group has more than 30 bakers, ranging from home bakers who make one or two cakes a year to professionals with their own baking businesses.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
Sweet rice cakes with gooey walnut paste next to stalls of fish cake and raw seafood.
From "Finding Junie Kim" by Ellen Oh
The blender caked with a week’s worth of old food.
From Salon ● Oct. 28, 2026
In “Digger,” he returns to serious cinema caked in prosthetics playing an oil baron who causes a global meltdown.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026
A photograph showed the second man caked in mud, his hands pressed together in prayer, as rescuers carried him on a stretcher.
From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026
One close to the seafront, where the near-200-year-old golf club gives way to a spectacular view across the Firth of Forth to the Bass Rock, has its keypad caked in a sticky black ooze.
From BBC ● Mar. 1, 2026
It was caked with the night dirt of Georgia and South Carolina.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
"It was just a horrible feeling to walk in the middle of nowhere," she said with sand caking her clothes, adding that she feared for her unborn baby after her ordeal in the desert.
From Reuters ● Aug. 8, 2023
The rain and fish goo caking my shoes has already begun to harden.
From National Geographic ● Jul. 17, 2023
It’s figurative, embedded in the characters and the storyline, but also literal, with dirt and rot caking everything.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 23, 2023
The small green creatures, less than an inch long, are caking patio furniture with silk and even getting inside people’s homes.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 8, 2022
Mud flats near the banks, caking to dry clay, smelled of death.
From "Pax" by Sara Pennypacker
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
