larder
Americannoun
-
a room or place where food is kept; pantry.
-
a supply of food.
noun
Etymology
Origin of larder
1275–1325; Middle English < Anglo-French; Old French lardier. See lard, -er 2
Explanation
When your mother buys groceries, she puts them in the larder or the pantry. A larder is a room or cabinet where you store food. Larder is an old-fashioned word, created back when people used lard — rendered animal fat — to grease pans and cook food. The larder is where they kept their bacon and their lard. Now it's where you keep your potato chips and your cookies.
Vocabulary lists containing larder
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
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And Then There Were None
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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.
Someone stole a 24-pack of Sprite from his larder.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026
The food for the larder is donated by the charity FareShare, which redistributes surplus food and diverts it away from landfill.
From BBC • Feb. 27, 2026
A woman who runs a community larder said the organisation has seen a "record number" of customers and recently served 117 people in one day.
From BBC • Feb. 27, 2026
Gifted with every upsell in Hyundai’s ample larder, our Calligraphy AWD tester carried 364 pounds of extra luxury around its midsection, compared to the FWD model.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 8, 2026
One suggested function of the first gardens of nearly 11,000 years ago was to provide a reliable reserve larder as insurance in case wild food supplies failed.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
