flour

UK/ˈflaʊ.ə/US/ˈflaʊ.ɚ/

nounB1Common in everyday speech and writing · #4,690 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: flours

Flour is the fine powder ground from grain that bread and cakes start as. Wheat, mostly, with the grain crushed to dust.

The types are worth knowing, since plain flour has no raising agent, self-raising has one mixed in, and strong flour has more protein for bread. Wholemeal keeps the whole grain. It is a mass noun. The word is spelled almost like flower and sounds identical, which is no accident, since both come from the idea of the finest part of something.

Definitions of flour

1nounflourA fine powder made by grinding grain, used in baking.B1
“She weighed out the flour and the sugar.”
- Said"We're out of flour. Can you pick some up on the way back?"
- WrittenFlour dusted every surface, and the cat left pale footprints down the hall.
- UsedSift the flour twice for a lighter cake.
- ContrastFlour, not sugar. Both are white and fine, but flour tastes of nothing and sugar tastes of sweet. sugar →
- Not thisBreadcrumbs are not flour. Flours are ground grain, a powder; crumbs are baked bread broken small.
- SimplyPut flour in the bowl. Add water.
Patterna bag / cup of flour · plain / self-raising / wholemeal flour · dust with flour · flour and water

Remember it

Flour and flower were once one word: flour was the flower of the grain — the finest, whitest part, kept for bread.

hooks ontoflower

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*bʰleh₃-
English, today
flour

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). a doublet of fleur and flor and flower. Partially displaced native meal. The U.S. standard of identity comes from [https://web.archive.org/web/20100722051913/http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_02/21cfr137_02.html 21CFR137.105].

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the Kitchen, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 12 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

flour in the wild

Nut flour is a popular gluten-free alternative, being used within the "keto" and "paleo" diets.
Flour
Nut flour has traditionally been used in Mediterranean and Persian cuisine.
Flour
Semolina is a coarse flour traditionally made from durum wheat.
Semolina
Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of common wheat used for human consumption.
Wheat flour
Soft flour, in the US, is usually divided into cake flour, which is the lowest in gluten, and pastry flour, which has slightly more gluten than cake flour.
Wheat flour

1 / 2

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.

Related words

flourish

Definitions of flour

1nounflourA fine powder made by grinding grain, used in baking.B1

“She weighed out the flour and the sugar.”

Said"We're out of flour. Can you pick some up on the way back?"
WrittenFlour dusted every surface, and the cat left pale footprints down the hall.
UsedSift the flour twice for a lighter cake.
ContrastFlour, not sugar. Both are white and fine, but flour tastes of nothing and sugar tastes of sweet. sugar →
Not thisBreadcrumbs are not flour. Flours are ground grain, a powder; crumbs are baked bread broken small.
SimplyPut flour in the bowl. Add water.

Patterna bag / cup of flour · plain / self-raising / wholemeal flour · dust with flour · flour and water