lard
Americannoun
-
lards
plural
verb (used with object)
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lards,
present (3rd person singular)
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larded,
past participle, past
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larding
present participle
-
to apply lard or grease to.
-
to prepare or enrich (lean meat, chicken, etc.) with pork or fat, especially with lardons.
-
to supplement or enrich with something for improvement or ornamentation.
a literary work larded with mythological allusions.
noun
-
the rendered fat from a pig, esp from the abdomen, used in cooking
-
informal excess fat on a person's body
verb
-
to prepare (lean meat, poultry, etc) by inserting small strips of bacon or fat before cooking
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to cover or smear (foods) with lard
-
to add extra material to (speech or writing); embellish
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
lardsimple
-
lardssimple
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have lardedperfect
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has lardedperfect
-
am lardingprogressive
-
are lardingprogressive
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is lardingprogressive
-
have been lardingperfect progressive
-
has been lardingperfect progressive
Past
-
lardedsimple
-
had lardedperfect
-
was lardingprogressive
-
were lardingprogressive
-
had been lardingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of lard
1300–50; Middle English (v.), late Middle English (noun) < Middle French larder (v.), lard (noun) < Latin lār ( i ) dum bacon fat; akin to Greek lārīnós fat (adj.)
Explanation
Lard is rendered animal fat that's used for cooking. Although many bakers use butter or vegetable shortening in their pie crust, others swear by the rich flavor of lard. Lard is a white fat that comes from pigs. In some places, it's not uncommon to spread lard on bread instead of butter, and many cooks appreciate its ability to get extremely hot without burning and its savory flavor. Lard is also commonly used as a verb to mean "fill with unnecessary details," the way a student might lard an essay with impressive vocabulary words to disguise the fact that it was hastily written right before class.
Vocabulary lists containing lard
Save Me a Seat
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A Culinary Vocabulary Sampler
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The Odyssey
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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:
In many cases, those diets derived 60% of calories from lard, which does not accurately reflect typical human eating habits and makes it difficult to determine the effects of individual fatty acids.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 2, 2026
"We just put lard on them and it takes off. I'm laughing, but it's how it is," he told AFP during a visit of the company factory.
From Barron's ● Feb. 16, 2026
Those who lived in the countryside were more likely to cherish memories of lard than olive oil; having a pig to slaughter could get a struggling family through the year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026
Victoria's diet included cod liver oil, lard, salmon oil and oily fish like sardines, mackerel and salmon.
From BBC ● May 20, 2025
It must be hot, but not too hot, or the lard would burn.
From "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
I knew Kushner as an Olympic-level social climber, and he lards his memoir with famous names, however distant the acquaintance: Bono, Billy Joel, Kim Kardashian.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 26, 2022
He lards on the praise for the president’s political skills.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 12, 2018
So ambitious that the author lards it with fake biblical texts, this novel makes a riotous comedy of errors out of one cynic’s search for solace.
From New York Times ● Dec. 18, 2014
It lards on production details and tosses in a lead whose delivery feels more bro than bard.
From Time ● Nov. 29, 2
Falstaff sweats to death, And lards the lean earth as he walks along.
From Familiar Quotations A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature by John Bartlett
My college applications—each in its bulky envelope, larded with paper clips, staples and whiteout—had to be postmarked by noon.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 2026
In 1988, Icahn took TWA private, in a deal that brought him more than $400 million in profit but left the airline larded with $540 million in new debt, bringing its total to $4 billion.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 11, 2025
Until the “useless” headline sparked outrage, nobody at MSN seemed to realize that their news page was larded with gobbledygook.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 28, 2023
Newmaster gained widespread media attention after a 2013 paper in which he and colleagues in BMC Medicine said major suppliers of nutritional supplements sold products improperly larded with fillers and sometimes tainted with toxic contaminants.
From Science Magazine ● Mar. 20, 2023
Don kept talking, his voice too larded in bonhomie, her dislike clawing at her throat.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
And larding it with grievances, à la Mr. David in “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
"People will be larding out on all the bakery stuff," she says.
From BBC ● Mar. 8, 2025
They were likewise rejected by a state court after a judge found their pleadings largely “legally incoherent despite a heavy larding of pseudo-legal rhetoric.”
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 4, 2024
The Times, ever devoted to its vision of L.A.’s plummy future, wrote pages and pages about real estate, larding its stories with words like “stately mansion” and “palatial dwelling.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 12, 2022
And so I gave my approval to his first run for office, larding it with a bit of wifely caution.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
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.
