Library / English Dictionary

FLOUR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Fine powdery foodstuff obtained by grinding and sifting the meal of a cereal grain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("flour" is a kind of...):

food product; foodstuff (a substance that can be used or prepared for use as food)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "flour"):

plain flour (flour that does not contain a raising agent)

wheat flour (flour prepared from wheat)

soy flour; soybean flour; soybean meal (meal made from soybeans)

semolina (milled product of durum wheat (or other hard wheat) used in pasta)

Holonyms ("flour" is a substance of...):

pastry (any of various baked foods made of dough or batter)

bread; breadstuff; staff of life (food made from dough of flour or meal and usually raised with yeast or baking powder and then baked)

dough (a flour mixture stiff enough to knead or roll)

Derivation:

flour (convert grain into flour)

flour (cover with flour)

floury (resembling flour in fine powdery texture)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Convert grain into flour

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "flour" is one way to...):

convert (change the nature, purpose, or function of something)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

flour (fine powdery foodstuff obtained by grinding and sifting the meal of a cereal grain)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cover with flour

Example:

flour fish or meat before frying it

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "flour" is one way to...):

dredge (cover before cooking)

Domain category:

cookery; cooking; preparation (the act of preparing something (as food) by the application of heat)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s something PP

Derivation:

flour (fine powdery foodstuff obtained by grinding and sifting the meal of a cereal grain)

Credits

 Context examples: 

The shell consists of two concave pieces of wafer made of flour and water.

(Cachet Dosage Form, NCI Thesaurus)

He was a man who wrought hard at all that he turned his hand to; but he heated himself in grinding bones to mix with his flour, and so through over-diligence he brought a fever upon himself and died.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was a People's Course, the lecture on the Pyramids, and Jo rather wondered at the choice of such a subject for such an audience, but took it for granted that some great social evil would be remedied or some great want supplied by unfolding the glories of the Pharaohs to an audience whose thoughts were busy with the price of coal and flour, and whose lives were spent in trying to solve harder riddles than that of the Sphinx.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The study shows how the consumption of the cereal-based bread, which contains a variety of flours (wheat, oats, and spelt) and contains 22% dried fruit (figs, apricots, raisins), sates the appetite more than standard breads and alleviates hunger in healthy adults.

(Researchers reveal potential of bread that suppresses appetite, University of Granada)

“I’ve got a sled standing outside now, with twenty fiftypound sacks of flour on it,” Matthewson went on with brutal directness; “so don’t let that hinder you.”

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

"There'll be a check at the post-office, I know, and we'll transmute it into beautiful buckwheat flour, a gallon of maple syrup, and a new pair of overshoes for you."

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

You can remember how it was in the winter months before Toulon, Stone, when we had neither firing, wine, beef, pork, nor flour aboard the ships, nor a spare piece of rope, canvas, or twine.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Matthewson’s sled, loaded with a thousand pounds of flour, had been standing for a couple of hours, and in the intense cold (it was sixty below zero) the runners had frozen fast to the hard-packed snow.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Also, he would find flour,—not much,—a piece of bacon, and some beans.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

And when the last cup of flour was gone and the last rind of bacon, she was able to rise to the occasion, and of moccasins and the softer-tanned bits of leather in the outfit to make a grub-stake substitute that somehow held a man's soul in his body and enabled him to stagger on.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)