doughnut
n. countablen. a small, round cake that is fried and often has a hole in the middle.
n. a small ring-shaped cake of sweetened dough, typically fried and often glazed or filled with jam.
I bought a fresh doughnut and a coffee for breakfast.
The office kitchen was filled with the smell of sugar after someone brought in a dozen glazed doughnuts.
While traditionally associated with simple street food, the modern doughnut has been reimagined by artisanal bakeries using sourdough starters and exotic botanical glazes.
From dough + nut, 1809 because originally small, nut-sized balls of fried dough, or, more likely, from nut in the earlier sense of "small rounded cake or cookie", with the toroidal shape becoming common in the twentieth century. First attested in Knickerbocker’s History of New York, by Washington Irving, 1809.
Spelled 'donut' in American English and 'doughnut' in British English.