recipe
Americannoun
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recipes
plural
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a set of instructions for making or preparing something, especially a food dish.
a recipe for a cake.
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a medical prescription.
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a method to attain a desired end.
a recipe for success.
noun
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a list of ingredients and directions for making something, esp a food preparation
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med (formerly) a medical prescription
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a method for achieving some desired objective
a recipe for success
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of recipe
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin: take, imperative singular of recipere to receive
Explanation
A recipe is directions for making a dish or dessert, like your mother's award-winning recipe for chocolate chip cookies. The word recipe is most often used when talking about cooking. It includes two things: a list of ingredients that you'll need and the steps to take in order to make it. You can find recipes in cookbooks, on Web sites, in newspapers and magazines — or handed down in your family. Other than cooking, a recipe can also be a formula: the recipe for success is hard work, good timing and a little luck.
Vocabulary lists containing recipe
Words to Know Before You Defrost the Bird
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List 7
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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 meat, cured at Burbank’s RC Provisions with a proprietary recipe developed by Al Langer, still gets a lengthy — and costly — steaming after it arrives at the restaurant.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2026
He says he's made the same recipe so many times he describes it as "muscle memory".
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2026
I also use it in my Chopped Cheese recipe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
Once people love a jar rather than merely use it, corporate ownership can start to feel less like a business transaction than someone acquiring custody of a family recipe.
From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2026
I wish I could read your recipe, but since I can’t, I’m going to look for one at the library.
From "Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer" by Kelly Jones
She started following social media videos for tips and recipes, swapping out foods she didn't like.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2026
After finishing her masters degree she now shares her recipes online, hoping to help other students in the same position she was in.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2026
Their recipes acquire a little micro-mythology in your kitchen.
From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2026
Last year, the company changed its popular strawberry shake and signature pink lemonade recipes to remove red dye No. 40, a synthetic additive used to give foods and drinks a bright red hue.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
Neglecting the new shipments delivered to the storage room, she began hounding us for recipes, for vermicelli pudding and papaya stew, and inscribed them in crooked letters in the pages of her inventory ledger.
From "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
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.
