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filling

UK/ˈfɪlɪŋ/US[ˈfɪɫɪŋ]
adjectiveB14 meaningsCommon in everyday speech and writing · #2,503 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: fillings

Food is filling when a small amount leaves you full. Porridge is filling, a bowl of soup with bread is filling, three slices of cucumber are not.

The noun is everywhere too: the filling is whatever goes inside — the cream in a doughnut, the cheese in a sandwich, the meat in a pie. At the dentist a filling is the hard material packed into a drilled tooth, and 'I need a filling' is a sentence you will hear in any waiting room. Cushions and duvets have a filling as well, the soft stuff inside. Keep filling apart from fulfilling: a meal is filling, a job is fulfilling. And a filling station is where you fill the car with petrol.

Definitions of filling

  1. 1adjectivefillingOf food: making you feel full quickly.B1

    “The stew was cheap and surprisingly filling.”

    synonyms: substantial, satisfying

  2. 2nounpieThe food put inside a pie, sandwich, cake or similar.B1

    “The filling was hot but the pastry was still cold.”

  3. 3nounhardThe hard material a dentist puts into a hole in a tooth.B1

    “She needed two fillings after the check-up.”

  4. 4nounsoftSoft material used to fill the inside of something.B2

    “The cushions have a synthetic filling that flattens quickly.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Smell & Taste

First appears in chapter 5 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

filling in the wild

  • A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients.

    Pie

  • An apple pie is a fruit pie in which the principal filling is apples.

    Apple pie

  • The pie's filling ranges in color from orange to brown and is baked in a single pie shell, usually without a top crust.

    Pumpkin pie

  • Sliced roast beef is also sold as a cold cut, and used as a sandwich filling.

    Roast beef

  • Typically, semi-hard cheeses are used for the filling, such as cheddar, Red Leicester, or Double Gloucester.

    Cheese sandwich

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.