pastry
Americannoun
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pastries
plural
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a sweet baked food made of dough, especially the shortened paste used for pie crust and the like.
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any item of food of which such dough forms an essential part, as a pie, tart, or napoleon.
noun
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a dough of flour, water, shortening, and sometimes other ingredients
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baked foods, such as tarts, made with this dough
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an individual cake or pastry pie
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pastry
Explanation
A pastry is a sweet baked good. If you are into fruit tarts or chocolate eclairs, then you've got a thing for pastries. Most pastries start out as a soft dough or batter made from flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and butter. A tray of pastry at breakfast could include Danishes and croissants, while dessert pastries might be baklava, cream puffs, and strudel. All of these are variously flavored baked sweets, some formed from thin layers of flaky dough and others filled with fruit, cream, or other fillings. Another type of pastry is pie crust, a buttery dough that forms the base (and sometimes topping) for pies. Pastry originally meant "food made from paste," and paste meant "dough."
Vocabulary lists containing pastry
Stairway To Leaven: Baking Vocabulary
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Voilà: Croissant Lingo
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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:
They roast their own coffee beans and have an amazing pastry selection.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
While watching a video of a pastry class I took, I realized I forgot the name of the dessert.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026
Pophams bakery, which has branches in east London, has had a peach and sweetcorn danish pastry on its menu.
From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026
With a seeming majority of opticians and pharmacists out of stock, pastry chef Arno Dossogne, 37, struck gold at a small opticians' store that received a last-minute shipment Monday afternoon.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
Jacqui goes back to eating her pastry, speaking with a full mouth.
From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
Historically, there has been no guidance on what they should provide, but from next September pastries and fried-eggs will be off the menu and there will be a sugar cap when it comes to cereals.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026
After digesting our pastries, we will catch a late-morning movie at the Los Feliz 3, the Vista or the Landmark Sunset.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026
"Just imagine if the American forces weren't in Kuwait," she told AFP, while purchasing strawberry pastries for her children at Dunkin' -- the US donut franchise that remains popular across the Gulf.
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
There’s a counter with sandwiches, pastries, salads and more, but no buffet.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Each time a tray of pastries was brought to him, he devoured all the fancies and pastries on it, leaving all the other women hungry.
From "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman
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.
