cake

A rich, sweet dessert food, typically made of flour, sugar, and eggs and baked in an oven, and often covered in icing.

Noun

  1. A rich, sweet dessert food, typically made of flour, sugar, and eggs and baked in an oven, and often covered in icing.
    • On Monday afternoon, Ronya attends a birthday party and eats cake whenever cake is presented to her. - 2025 June 13, Rhys Southan, Helena Ward, Jen Semler, “A timing problem for instrumental convergence”, in...

    Synonyms: gateau

  2. A small mass of baked dough, especially a thin loaf from unleavened dough.
    • an oatmeal cake
    • a johnnycake
  3. A thin wafer-shaped mass of fried batter; a griddlecake or pancake.
    • buckwheat cakes
  4. A block of any various dense materials.
    • a cake of soap
    • a cake of sand
    • Cakes of rustling ice come rolling down the flood. - 1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob...

    Synonyms: block

  5. Ellipsis of piece of cake: a trivially easy task or responsibility.
    • Now that I escape, sleepwalk awake / Those who could relate know the world ain't cake - 1996, “Ready or Not”, in The Score, performed by Fugees:

    Synonyms: piece of cake bagatelle waltz breeze cake and gingerbread cakewalk child's play cinch doddle doss duck soup easy pickings gimme layup low-hanging fruit no-brainer open and shut case picnic piece of piss plain sailing plane sailing slam dunk snap walk in the park

  6. Money.
  7. Used to describe the doctrine of having one's cake and eating it too.
    • "It looks like the cake [and eat it] philosophy is still alive." Quote attributed to Donald Tusk. - 2018, The Guardian, "UK's aspirations for post-Brexit trade deal an illusion, says Donald Tusk", Daniel Boffey, Peter...
  8. A pair of buttocks, especially one that is exceptionally plump or full.
    • Since I started doing squats, I've built up some serious cake.

    Synonyms: 'tocks arse arse cheeks ass ass cheeks back backside batty behind blessed assurance booty botty bottom bum bum cheeks buns butt butt cheeks buttocks caboose cheeks derriere dicky fanny

  9. A multishot fireworks assembly comprising several tubes, each with a fireworks effect, lit by a single fuse.
  10. A foolish person.
    • "The Lord Mayor can say tart things," said Hobler to a scavenger. "Yes," replied the dustman, "he does say things that are tart, which is not to be wondered at when we know him to be a regular cake." - 1834, Figaro in...

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *kakǭ Old Norse kakabor. Middle English cake English cake From Middle English cake, from Old Norse kaka (“cake”) (compare Norwegian kake, Icelandic/Swedish kaka, Danish kage), from Proto-Germanic *kakǭ, of disputed origin. Likely a distant cognate with kaak. Perhaps related to cookie, kuchen, and quiche. Doublet of coca (pastry).

Forms

cakes

Synonyms

cake gateau pastry

Hypernyms

dessert food

Hyponyms

angel cake angel food cake carrot cake cheesecake cherry Bakewell tart chocolate cake Christmas cake cream cake cupcake Lane cake torte Twelfth cake pound cake upside-down cake Victoria sponge

Related

biscuit Black Forest gâteau brownie bun cruller crumpet dessert donut doughnut éclair flapjack frangipane gâteau gugelhupf jumbal koeksister kruller kuchen kugelhopf kugelhupf ladyfinger lamington Linzertorte madeleine

Derived

7 Up cake ague-cake Alabama Lane cake angel cake angel food cake angel-food cake angel's food cake angel's-food cake apple cake applesauce cake ash-cake ashcake ash cake ash-heap-cake baby cake baked in the cake banana cake Banbury cake barm cake barmcake bastable cake Battenberg cake battercake batter-cake

Verb

  1. Coat (something) with a crust of solid material.
    • His shoes are caked with mud.
    • You will remember that Stranger Things was initially conceived as a one-off, and its success forced the Duffer Brothers to cake on endless new lore to keep the engine running. - 2025 December 26, Stuart Heritage,...

    Synonyms: crust encrust

  2. To form into a cake, or mass.
  3. Of blood or other liquid, to dry out and become hard.
    • Once we fell asleep, and, I think, must have slept for some hours, for, when we woke, our limbs were quite stiff, and the blood from our blows and scratches had caked, and was hard and dry upon our skin. - 1886 October...

Forms

cakes caking caked

Derived

anticaking cake up