doughnut

Definition

A deep-fried piece of dough or batter, usually mixed with various sweeteners and flavors, often made in a toroidal or ellipsoidal shape flattened sphere shape filled with jelly/jam, custard, or cream.

Etymology

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.

Example Sentences

• "The soldiers, drawn up in hollow square—how apt is this word hollow, when applied to men who have fasted, in view of promised doughnuts!—received the procession, which consisted of music, then the ladies, then the doughnuts."
• "One American student sought my help to take the work further in his school science project, in which he studied how doughnuts differ from cookies."
• "2018, Karen Scott, Margaret Webb, Clare Kostelnick, Long-Term Caring: Residential, Home and Community Aged Care, 4th Edition, Australia and New Zealand Edition, Elsevier Australia, page 227, The prostate gland lies just below the bladder and is shaped like a doughnut."