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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

bake.

To cook using an oven, especially baked goods.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/beɪk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/bæɪk/Australia, New-Zealand/bek/Scotland/beːk/Wales
  1. To cook using an oven, especially baked goods. To cook (something) in an oven (for someone).

    ditransitive · intransitive · transitive
    I baked a delicious cherry pie.
    She's been baking all day to prepare for the dinner.
  2. To cook using an oven, especially baked goods. To be cooked in an oven.

    intransitive
    The cake baked at 350°F.
  3. To cook using an oven, especially baked goods. To regularly prepare baked goods.

    intransitive
    In some cultures, it is expected that a proper housewife should bake.
  4. To cook using an oven, especially baked goods. To smoke marijuana.

    figuratively · intransitive · slang
  5. To cook using an oven, especially baked goods. To incorporate into something greater.

    figuratively
  6. To heat or dry. To be warmed for drying and hardening.

    intransitive
    The clay baked in the sun.
  7. To heat or dry. To dry by heat.

    transitive
    They baked the electrical parts lightly to remove moisture.
  8. To heat or dry. To be hot.

    figuratively · intransitive
    It is baking in the greenhouse.
    I'm baking after that workout in the gym.
  9. To heat or dry. To cause to be hot.

    figuratively · transitive
  10. To harden by cold.

    broadly · obsolete · transitive
  11. To fix (lighting, reflections, etc.) as part of the texture of an object to improve rendering performance.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₃g- Proto-Indo-European *bʰh₃g- Proto-Germanic *bakaną Proto-West Germanic *bakan Old English bacan Middle English baken English bake From Middle English baken, from Old English bacan (“to bake”), from Proto-West Germanic *bakan, from Proto-Germanic *bakaną (“to bake”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₃g- (“to roast, bake”). Cognate with West Frisian bakke (“to bake”), Dutch bakken (“to bake”), Low German backen (“to bake”), German backen (“to bake”), Norwegian Bokmål bake (“to bake”), Danish bage (“to bake”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish baka (“to bake”), Ancient Greek φώγω (phṓgō, “roast”, verb).

noun/beɪk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/bæɪk/Australia, New-Zealand/bek/Scotland/beːk/Wales
  1. The act of cooking food by baking.

  2. Any of various baked dishes resembling casserole.

    Australia · New-Zealand · UK · especially
  3. Any food item that is baked, such as a pastry.

    bake pan
  4. A social event at which food (such as seafood) is baked, or at which baked food is served.

    US
    an oyster bake on the shore
  5. A small, flat (or ball-shaped) cake of dough eaten mainly in Barbados, similar in appearance and ingredients to a pancake but fried (or sometimes roasted).

    Barbados · UK · US · sometimes
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₃g- Proto-Indo-European *bʰh₃g- Proto-Germanic *bakaną Proto-West Germanic *bakan Old English bacan Middle English baken English bake From Middle English baken, from Old English bacan (“to bake”), from Proto-West Germanic *bakan, from Proto-Germanic *bakaną (“to bake”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₃g- (“to roast, bake”). Cognate with West Frisian bakke (“to bake”), Dutch bakken (“to bake”), Low German backen (“to bake”), German backen (“to bake”), Norwegian Bokmål bake (“to bake”), Danish bage (“to bake”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish baka (“to bake”), Ancient Greek φώγω (phṓgō, “roast”, verb).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.