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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

doughnut.

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.

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈdəʊnʌt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈdoʊ(ˌ)nʌt/Canada, General-American
  1. 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.

  2. Any object in the shape of a torus. A circular life raft.

    attributive · figuratively
  3. Any object in the shape of a torus. A toroidal vacuum chamber.

    figuratively
  4. Any object in the shape of a torus. A peel-out or skid mark in the shape of a circle; a 360-degree skid.

    Australia · Canada · US · figuratively
  5. Any object in the shape of a torus. A spare car tyre, usually stored in the boot, that is smaller than a full-sized tyre and is only intended for temporary use.

    figuratively
  6. Any object in the shape of a torus. A kind of tyre for an airplane.

    figuratively
  7. Any object in the shape of a torus. A shaper for making hair into a ponytail or bun

    figuratively
  8. Any object in the shape of a torus. A vulva; by extension, a woman's virginity.

    figuratively · slang · vulgar
  9. Any object in the shape of a torus. A puffy anus with the outward shape of a donut; more generally, any anus.

    figuratively · slang · vulgar
  10. A foolish or stupid person; an idiot.

    colloquial
    Nice going, you doughnut!
  11. A toroidal cushion typically used by hemorrhoid patients.

  12. A whole note.

    slang
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *dʰóyǵʰos Proto-Germanic *daigaz Proto-West Germanic *daig Old English dāg Middle English dogh English dough substrateder. Proto-Germanic *hnuts Proto-West Germanic *hnut Old English hnutu Middle English note English nut English doughnut 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.

verb/ˈdəʊnʌt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈdoʊ(ˌ)nʌt/Canada, General-American
  1. To encircle something.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰeyǵʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *dʰóyǵʰos Proto-Germanic *daigaz Proto-West Germanic *daig Old English dāg Middle English dogh English dough substrateder. Proto-Germanic *hnuts Proto-West Germanic *hnut Old English hnutu Middle English note English nut English doughnut 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.

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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.