Link Centre Dictionary

dumpling

dump·ling

UK/ˈdʌmp.lɪŋ/ US/ˈdʌmplɪŋ/ uncommon uk us vulgar

noun

1.

small balls or strips of boiled or steamed dough

Synonyms

Origin

A folk word, first attested in c. 1600s, apparently from a Norfolk (East Anglian) dialect, of uncertain origin: * perhaps from some Low German word (compare dümpeln (“bobbing up and down”)), * or from the rare dialectal adjective dump (“lump, of the consistency of dough”) (first attested in the late 1800s), + -ling (diminutive suffix), although dumpling is recorded much earlier. However, compare dumpy (“short and stout”).

Phrases

  • apple dumpling
  • apple-dumpling shop
  • Chinese dumpling
  • clootie dumpling
  • crotch dumpling
  • dumpling squid
  • hump dumpling
  • Norfolk dumpling

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.