frosting
Americannoun
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frostings
plural
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a sweet mixture, cooked or uncooked, for coating or filling cakes, cookies, and the like; icing.
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a dull or lusterless finish, as on metal or glass.
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a process of highlighting the hair by bleaching selected strands.
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a material used for decorative work, as signs, displays, etc., made from coarse flakes of powdered glass.
idioms
noun
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a soft icing based on sugar and egg whites
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Also called: icing. a sugar preparation, variously flavoured and coloured, for coating and decorating cakes, biscuits, etc
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a rough or matt finish on glass, silver, etc
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slang the practice of stealing a car while the owner has left it idling to defrost the windows and heat the engine
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of frosting
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:
The cake had a butterscotch frosting, which was brown and thus “weird.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
Everything else is just frosting on the cake.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 30, 2026
“Big wasn’t a crush, he was a crash,” Carrie says to Miranda as she peels down the wrapper on a cupcake topped with bright pink buttercream frosting.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 11, 2026
Susan Prunty’s bakery in Medford, Ore., sold about 25 Christmas cookie decorating kits through the middle of last December, complete with a dozen freshly baked sugar cookies, buttercream frosting, and sprinkles.
From Barron's ● Dec. 24, 2025
He’s been frosting those cakes and cookies for years in his family’s bakery.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
A few more tips: Unlike heavily sweetened cream cheese frostings, this recipe is tangy and bright from yogurt and citrus, and may run gorgeously over the sides of your cake.
From Salon ● Apr. 8, 2022
“For its base, cooks followed one of several butter cake formulas, each adapted well to all sorts of flavorings, toppings, and frostings, limited only by the baker’s imagination,” Tipton-Martin states in “Jubilee.”
From Washington Post ● Apr. 6, 2022
Baking often necessitates frostings, caramels, and creams, which can be finicky if they’re not kept at a steady temperature.
From Slate ● May 5, 2020
The dough is preternaturally puffy but has almost no give, and the frostings are as subtle as giggles.
From New York Times ● Nov. 4, 2014
The six tiers of fabric are like different frostings of tulle and lace and silk.
From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton
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.
