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
Selection Vocabulary 1, Unit 1
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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:
Innovafeed breeds black soldier flies in a factory in northern France and turns the larvae into an ingredient for fish feed and other products.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026
One important ingredient was TGF-b, transforming growth factor beta.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 25, 2026
Dancers with backgrounds in all styles, including salsa, hip-hop and jazz, provided the last ingredient to the energetic scene.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
Most common by far is injecting the gel-like substance hyaluronic acid - the same key ingredient used in lip fillers.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
There was just one rule: We couldn’t use an ingredient that would spoil and stink up the classroom, like milk, or something that wasn’t good for us to breathe, like gas.
From "Because of Mr. Terupt" by Rob Buyea
The ingredients needed to build rocky planets may have appeared as early as 100 million years after the Big Bang, according to new research from the University of Portsmouth.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 31, 2026
Aboard The Ghan, stretching from Darwin to Adelaide, Australian game and ingredients are featured in every meal.
From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2026
Mitchell, 36 years old, increased prices this year to help cover some of the new ingredients, particularly the grass-fed beef.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026
Food preparation bots are sometimes clumsy – dropping ingredients in the wrong places at times, she explains.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
How can such simple ingredients make my tongue feel like it’s dancing with warmth and smoke?
From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan
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.
