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:
The world is hungrier than ever for copper, a key ingredient in green energy and the data centers that power artificial intelligence.
From Barron's ● Oct. 22, 2026
The results suggest that LPC70 could eventually become a useful functional food ingredient for reducing some of the health consequences of excessive salt intake.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 18, 2026
"Continuity in leadership is a key ingredient for sustained success."
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 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
The culprit turned out to be a turkey chili recipe that she and Wilson had discovered: every ingredient except the turkey came from a can.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
“We liked the ingredients, and we loved the competitor,” Rays president of baseball operation Erik Neander said of Baker.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 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
Gray’s early life has all the ingredients of a congenial coming-of-age movie, one rooted in the anything-goes landscape of postwar Southern California.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2026
Order or pick up your soup ingredients, toppings, drinks and dessert components.
From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2026
Doc pushed aside the ingredients littering his table to make room for the man to lean on.
From "Root Magic" by Eden Royce
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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.
