soup
Americannoun
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soups
plural
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a liquid food made by boiling or simmering meat, fish, or vegetables with various added ingredients.
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Slang. a thick fog.
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Slang. added power, especially horsepower.
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Slang. nitroglycerin.
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Photography Slang. developing solution.
verb phrase
idioms
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in the soup, in trouble.
He'll be in the soup when the truth comes out.
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from soup to nuts,
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from the first through the last course of a meal.
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from beginning to end; to a complete, encompassing degree; leaving nothing out.
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noun
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a liquid food made by boiling or simmering meat, fish, vegetables, etc, usually served hot at the beginning of a meal
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informal a photographic developer
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informal anything resembling soup in appearance or consistency, esp thick fog See also peasouper
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a slang name for nitroglycerine
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informal in trouble or difficulties
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of soup
1645–55; 1940–45 soup for def. 6; < French soupe, Old French souppe, sope < Germanic; compare Dutch sopen to dunk. See sop
Explanation
Soup is a liquid or thick, creamy food that's usually hot and savory. If you have a sore throat, your grandma might make you a nice bowl of chicken noodle soup. Most soup is made by cooking vegetables, beans, meat, or fish (or a combination of these) in water for a long time. Sometimes soup is thickened with cream or flour, or by pureeing some of the ingredients. Certain soups, like gazpacho and vichyssoise, are served cold, and others are sweet and made with fruit. You may hear people describe a dense, thick fog as "pea soup" or use the phrase "soup to nuts" to mean "everything."
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:
McCusker founded a soup kitchen in north Belfast in 2017 and regularly campaigns on issues regarding homelessness, poverty and addiction.
From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2026
Like City Spa, the menu also offers Eastern European crowd-pleasers made in-house from borscht to cream of mushroom soup.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2026
Domnauer recalled one particularly unusual account involving someone eating soup.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 25, 2026
“You’re trying to alleviate homelessness by going and working in a soup kitchen or handing out blankets,” Steve recalls Chapman saying to him.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026
On Christmas Day I made my green palm nut soup again because it was my star meal here so far.
From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo
Ultra-processed foods include many everyday products, such as breakfast cereals, packaged bread, and instant soups.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 4, 2026
Make the black bean and Olive Bar tomato soups.
From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2026
The remaining residents live off vegetables they grow in their gardens, soups of boiled weeds and cans of food they scavenge from bombed-out, abandoned homes around this city.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026
There comes a point in the life of many soups when they get a little sleepy.
From Salon ● Oct. 5, 2026
One wall is a grocery store, where coffee, canned soups, bread, and pancake mixes are stacked on shelves.
From "On the Far Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
