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
How does dumpling compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
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:
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
Why are there concerns about popular dumpling squishy toys?
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 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
She dips her spoon into a container of chicken dumpling soup, swimming in grease.
From "Hurricane Child" by Kheryn Callender
After getting to know them, he found himself sharing dumplings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
In the oven, the liquid reduces into something richer, the dumplings nestling into a creamy, deeply savory sauce that edges toward casserole territory.
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
We order crispy spring rolls and vegetable dumplings and fried tofu.
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.
