ingredient
Americannoun
-
ingredients
plural
-
something that enters as an element into a mixture.
Flour, eggs, and sugar are the main ingredients in the cake.
-
a constituent element of anything; component.
the ingredients of political success.
noun
Synonym Usage
See element.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of ingredient
First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English from Latin ingredient- (stem of ingrediēns ), present participle of ingredī “to go or step into, commence,” equivalent to in- in- 2 + -gredient- “going”; see gradient
Explanation
An ingredient is one part of a mixture. For example, if you're making chocolate chip cookies, flour is just one ingredient you'll need. Ingredient comes from the Latin word ingredientem, meaning "that which enters into." It's not just for cookies. If you're in the lab mixing a chemical compound, you carefully add one ingredient after the next and record the results (and hope nothing blows up). It's also an element or factor of something, such as how that song you wrote has all the ingredients to be a sure-fire hit! Remember that it ends in -ent, since often what you Eat has ingrediEnts.
Vocabulary lists containing ingredient
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National Cookie Day
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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:
"Continuity in leadership is a key ingredient for sustained success."
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
Vanillin is more than just a flavoring ingredient.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 12, 2026
That price is paid primarily by the poorer countries where the main ingredient of fishmeal is harvested and processed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026
Rising ingredient prices have pinched Pepsi and other food processors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
Maybe that's been the secret ingredient all along—family.
From "Starfish" by Akemi Dawn Bowman
These patterns provide clues about where an asteroid's ingredients originated and, in some cases, when they formed.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 24, 2026
The typical ingredients: peanut butter or almond butter, chia seeds, flax seeds, oatmeal and shredded coconut.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026
Vongerichten has also played an integral role in shaping the building’s culinary offerings, which will place an emphasis on fresh, seasonal ingredients and farm-to-table dining.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 23, 2026
He described the film as "a comedy with romance, with intrigue, with infidelity, with all the ingredients that I always think are going to make a good story".
From Barron's ● Oct. 21, 2026
But by straining to recover the factual ingredients in the story, we have inadvertently ignored the most obvious question—namely, what were these two prominent American statesmen doing on the ledge in the first place?
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
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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.
