dough
- 01 B1 Intermediate
a thick mixture of flour and liquid used to make bread or cookies.
a thick, malleable paste of flour and liquid, often including leavening agents, intended for baking.
Simple“She kneaded the bread dough on the counter for ten minutes.”
In context“The pastry chef chilled the dough overnight to ensure the butter remained solid, which is essential for creating flaky layers in the finished croissant.”
UsageUncountable when referring to the substance; countable when referring to specific batches.
- 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
a casual word for money.
a slang term for money or currency.
Simple“He made a lot of dough working at the tech company last summer.”
In context“After years of struggling as a freelance artist, he finally started raking in some serious dough once his digital illustrations went viral.”
Teacher's tipWhile common in older films and casual speech, 'dough' is less frequent in modern youth slang than 'cash' or 'bread'.
From Middle English dow, dogh, dagh, from Old English dāg, from Proto-Germanic daigaz (“dough”), from Proto-Indo-European dʰeyǵʰ- (“to knead, form, mold”). Cognate with Scots daich, dauch, doach (“dough”), North Frisian dii, Jai (“dough”), West Frisian daai (“dough”), Dutch deeg (“dough”), German Teig (“dough”), Low German and Luxembourgish Deeg (“dough”), Vilamovian taag (“dough”), Yiddish טייג (teyg, “dough”), Danish dej (“dough”), Faroese deiggj (“dough”), Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk deig (“dough”), Swedish deg (“dough”), Gothic 𐌳𐌰𐌹𐌲𐍃 (daigs, “dough”). The derivation of the second meaning (of money) is obscure, but dates to the mid 19th century.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.