Other forms: ingredients
An ingredient is one of the foods mixed together to make a dish. The main ingredient, list the ingredients, four ingredients.
On packaging, ingredients are listed by weight in descending order, which is why the first one tells you most about what you are eating. Figuratively, an ingredient is one necessary part of anything: a key ingredient of success. Note active ingredient, which is the part of a medicine that does the work; and that a recipe with four ingredients is usually better than one with fourteen.
1nouningredientOne of the foods mixed together to make a dish.
“Check that you have all the ingredients before you start cooking.”
Patternthe main / secret / key ingredient · a list of ingredients · ingredients for + dish · ingredients include
2nounnecessaryOne necessary part of anything.
“Luck was the ingredient nobody wanted to mention.”
ingredient is a component.
INgredient → everything that jumps IN the bowl
Egg, milk and flour line up on the table and jump into the bowl one by one, like swimmers into a pool: every one that goes in is an ingredient.
Latin ingrediens means entering, from ingredi — in- plus gradi, to step. An ingredient is something that steps into the dish, which is the same gradi behind progress and degree.
Latin
ingrediens
Middle French
ingredient
English, today
ingredient
Built from
From Middle French ingredient, from Latin ingrediens, present participle of ingredior (“to go or enter into or onto”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in In the Kitchen