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
Compare meaning
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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
Out of the Dust
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Foods from Asia
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for November 10–November 16, 2024
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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:
Why are there concerns about popular dumpling squishy toys?
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
It has all the flavors of a dumpling filling, none of the assembly.
From Salon ● May 22, 2026
Amazon is now awash with squishy products: There is a cheese squishy, glitter dumpling squishies and even a squishy that resembles a stick of butter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 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
I set to the dumpling on my plate while the rain fell steadily on the roof.
From "Dragonwings" by Laurence Yep
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
In a tiny Tokyo restaurant filled with the smell of Nepalese dumplings, Budhathoki Samjhana surveys the business she built from scratch but may now have to give up as Japan tightens visa rules.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
The father of three threw himself into his new life: sampling dumplings , milking goats on a farm and filming videos about life in Russia for his online followers.
From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026
I can’t explain that Inkling has been poking my leg really hard and even grabbing dumplings off my plate.
From "Invisible Inkling" by Emily Jenkins
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.
