dumpling
Americannoun
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dumplings
plural
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a rounded mass of steamed and seasoned dough, often served in soup or with stewed meat.
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a dessert consisting of a wrapping of dough enclosing sliced apples or other fruit, boiled or baked.
-
a short or stout person.
noun
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a small ball of dough cooked and served with stew
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a pudding consisting of a round pastry case filled with fruit
apple dumpling
-
informal a short plump person
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dumpling
1590–1600; dump (of uncertain origin) + -ling 1
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Explanation
A dumpling is a delicious, bite-sized food that's made of savory ingredients wrapped in dough and cooked. Chinese dumplings can be steamed, boiled, or fried. If you order dumplings in a Chinese restaurant, you'll get a filling made with vegetables, meat, or fish — it might be a wonton, cooked in a soup, or a potsticker, steamed and then lightly fried. Most cultures have some version of a savory dumpling, and many have sweet dumplings as well, like apple dumplings, which have a fruit filling wrapped in pastry.
Vocabulary lists containing dumpling
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Foods from Asia
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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:
"Turkish food, like kebab," says rapper Sude Oktay, before adding mantı, a traditional Turkish dumpling dish.
From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026
My first bite of Hong Kong is a fried soup dumpling, filled with truffled pork and that holy trinity, garlic, ginger, scallion.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026
But that has largely been the result of viewers dumpling cable, not actual growth in the market, data show.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 30, 2026
Din Tai Fung is a family business that sold its first dumpling in Taipei in 1972 and now numbers more than 165 locations worldwide.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 20, 2025
I saw half a little black mustache—it seemed to be dripping out of his nostril—a scrawny neck, a head that seemed more dumpling than stone.
From "Milkweed" by Jerry Spinelli
“They are launching research ships as fast as dropping dumplings into a pot,” said Su Chih-chieh, an associate professor at National Taiwan University’s Institute of Oceanography, which operates one of Taiwan’s research ships.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026
They often resemble dumplings, but children "can't see what's inside the box so they're excited to see which one they get".
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
After getting to know them, he found himself sharing dumplings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
I wouldn’t apologize for the frozen vegetables or the bag of dumplings.
From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2026
“Your make-do is better than the Ritz,” I said, helping myself to some more chicken and dumplings.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
