flour
English
flour
Alternative forms
- flower (obsolete)
Etymology
Spelled (until about 1830) and meaning flower in the sense of flour being the "finest portion of ground grain" (compare French fleur de farine, fine fleur). Doublet of flower. Partially displaced native meal.
The U.S. standard of identity comes from 21CFR137.105.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈflaʊə/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈflaʊɚ/
- (Indian English) IPA(key): /ˈflɔr/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -aʊə(ɹ)
- Homophone: flower (for people who pronounce flour as two syllables or flower as one)
Noun
flour (usually uncountable, plural flours)
- Powder obtained by grinding or milling cereal grains, especially wheat, or other foodstuffs such as soybeans and potatoes, and used to bake bread, cakes, and pastry.
- 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess:
- Everything a living animal could do to destroy and to desecrate bed and walls had been done. […] A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe.
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- (US standards of identity) The food made by grinding and bolting cleaned wheat (not durum or red durum) until it meets specified levels of fineness, dryness, and freedom from bran and germ, also containing any of certain enzymes, ascorbic acid, and certain bleaching agents.
- Powder of other material.
- wood flour, produced by sanding wood
- mustard flour
- Obsolete form of flower.
- 1886 May, Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], OCLC 881857478:
- that nobody is wished to see my dead body. & that no murnurs walk behind me at my funeral. & that no flours be planted on my grave.
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Synonyms
- (U.S. standard of identity): smeddum, plain flour, wheat flour, white flour
Coordinate terms
- (ground material): meal
Derived terms
- all-purpose flour
- bread flour
- cricket flour
- flour beetle
- flour corn
- flour gold
- flour mite
- flour-monger
- flour moth
- flour treatment agent
- glacial flour
- graham flour
- moth flour
- national flour
- pastry flour
- rice flour
- rock flour
- second flour
- self-raising flour, self-rising flour
- strong flour
- wood flour
Descendants
- → Drehu: falawa
- → Maori: parāoa
- → Palauan: blauang
- → West Uvean: falawa
Translations
ground cereal grains or other foodstuff
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food made by grinding and bolting cleaned wheat
powder of other material
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See also
- bran
- farina
- meal
- smeddum
Verb
flour (third-person singular simple present flours, present participle flouring, simple past and past participle floured)
- (transitive) To apply flour to something; to cover with flour.
- (transitive) To reduce to flour.
- (intransitive) To break up into fine globules of mercury in the amalgamation process.
Translations
to apply flour to something
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Anagrams
- fluor, fluor-, four L, furol, orful, rufol
Cornish
Alternative forms
- flowr
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [fluːɹ]
Adjective
flour
- flower, choice (best of a collective)
Noun
flour m (plural flourys)
- (botany) flower
- flower (the best of a collective)
Synonyms
- blejen, bleujen, blejan
- flowren
Middle English
Etymology 1
Borrowed from Anglo-Norman flur, from Latin flōrem, accusative of flōs. More at flower.
Alternative forms
- fflour, fflowr, fleur, flor, floure, flower, flowr, flowre, flowyr, flur
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /fluːr/
Noun
flour (plural floures)
- A flower (often representing impermanence or beauty)
- 1387–1400, [Geoffrey] Chaucer, “Here Bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunt́burẏ”, in The Tales of Caunt́burẏ (Hengwrt Chaucer; Peniarth Manuscript 392D), Aberystwyth, Ceredigion: National Library of Wales, published c. 1400–1410], OCLC 14061358, folio 2, recto:
- Whan that Auerill wt his shoures soote / The droghte of march hath ꝑced to the roote / And bathed euery veyne in swich lycour / Of which v̄tu engendred is the flour […]
- When that April, with its sweet showers / Has pierced March's drought to the root / And bathed every vein in fluid such that / with its power, the flower is made […]
-
- A depiction or likeness of a flower.
- Success or achievement in a contest; victoriousness.
- A virtue or benefit; something desirable.
- That which is unparalleled; the top or most superior.
- Flour (i.e. the best part of a grain)
- A powder; especially one which is white like flour.
- An exemplar or example of a trait or behaviour.
- A woman's menstruation/period.
- (rare) Virginhood; sexual abstinence.
Related terms
- flourdelis
- flouren
- flourynge
- floury
- lilie flour
Descendants
- English: flower, flour
- Scots: flouer, flour, floor
- → Middle Welsh: fflwr
- Welsh: fflŵr
References
- “flǒur, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-09-25.
- “flǒur, n.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-09-25.
Etymology 2
From Old English flōr.
Noun
flour
- Alternative form of flor
Occitan
Alternative forms
- flor, hlor
Etymology
From Old Occitan flor, from Latin flōs, flōrem, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃- (“flower, blossom”).
Noun
flour f (plural flours)
- (Mistralian) flower
Old French
Noun
flour f (oblique plural flours, nominative singular flour, nominative plural flours)
- Alternative form of flor
- 1377, Bernard de Gordon, Fleur de lis de medecine (a.k.a. lilium medicine), page 136 of this essay:
- non pasque les flours touchent a la chair nue car ce seroit doubte que les porres ne se clousissent et de fievre putride.
- but not that the flowers should touch the naked flesh because this may cause the pores to shut with a putrid fever.
-
Romansch
Alternative forms
- (Rumantsch Grischun, Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Puter, Vallader) flur
- (Sursilvan) flura
Etymology
From Latin flōs, flōrem, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃- (“flower, blossom”).
Noun
flour f (plural flours)
- (Surmiran) flower
Scots
Alternative forms
- flouer
Etymology
From Middle English flour, from Anglo-Norman flur, from Latin flōrem, accusative of flōs. More at English flower.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈfluːr/
Noun
flour (plural flours)
- a flower
- a bouquet (bunch of flowers)
- (uncountable) Wheat flour
Verb
flour (third-person singular simple present flours, present participle flourin, simple past flourt, past participle flourt)
- to embroider