▪ I. dough, n.
(dəʊ)
Forms: 1 dáᵹ, dáh, 4 doȝ, 4–5 dogh, north. dagh, 4–8 dow, dowe, 6 doughe, dowghe, 6– dough, (7 doe, 6– Sc. daigh, deawch). See also duff, which represents a prevalent dialect pronunciation.
[A Common Teut. n.: OE. dáh, gen. dáᵹes, = OFris. deeg, Du. deg, OHG., MHG. teic, Ger. teig, ON. deig, (Sw. deg, Da. deig, dei), Goth. daigs:—OTeut. *daigoz, f. verbal stem dig-, deig-, pre-Teutonic *dhigh- to form of clay, to knead: cf. Skr. dih- to besmear, L. fig-, fingĕre; cf. Gr. τεῖχος wall.]
1. a. A mass consisting of flour or meal moistened and kneaded into a paste, with or without leaven, ready to be baked into bread, etc.; kneaded flour; paste of bread. † sour-dough (q.v.), leaven.
| c 1000 Sax. Leechd. II. 342 Wyrc clam of..daᵹe. Ibid. III. 88 Cned hyt..{thbar} hit si swa þicca swa doh. 1303 R. Brunne Handl. Synne 10099 Þe paste..ne oghe Be made of eny maner of soure doghe. 1340 Ayenb. 205 Ase þe leuayne zoureþ þet doȝ. c 1430 Two Cookery-bks. 43 Take dow, & make þer-of a þinne kake. c 1450 Myrc 1882 Thy bred schal be of whete flour, I-made of dogh that ys not sour. 1526 Tindale Gal. v. 9 A lytel leven doth leven the whole lompe of dowe. 1649 Jer. Taylor Gt. Exemp. Pref. ¶25 He left this nation, as a piece of leaven in a masse of dow. 1813 Sir H. Davy Agric. Chem. (1814) 137 Leavened bread for use is made by mixing a little dough that has fermented, with new dough, and kneading them together. 1830 M. Donovan Dom. Econ. I. 351 The better and older the flour the more water it absorbs to make dough. |
b. Proverb.
(my) cake is dough,
(my) meal is all dough (
Sc.): my project has failed.
| 1596 Shakes. Tam. Shr. v. i. 145 My cake is dough, but Ile in among the rest. 1687–1708 [see cake n. 8]. 1737 Ramsay Scot. Prov. (1776) 38 (Jam.) His meal's a' daigh. 1860 Reade Cloister & H. xxv, Dietrich's forty years weighed him down like forty bullets. ‘Our cake is dough’, he gasped. |
2. a. transf. and
fig.| 1611 Cotgr., Laudore..a leaden fellow, poore sneakesbie, man of dowgh. a 1616 Beaum. & Fl. Wit without Money ii. ii, She has found what dough you are made of, and so kneads you. 1624 Fletcher Rule a Wife iii. i, How unlike the lump I took him for, The piece of ignorant dow. 1788 Burns 1st Ep. to Graham 16 She [Nature] kneads the lumpish philosophic dough. 1876 Geo. Eliot Dan. Der. IV. lviii. 168 The baking process which the human dough demands. |
b. Money.
slang (
orig. U.S.).
| 1851 Yale Tomahawk Feb. (Th.), He thinks he will pick his way out of the Society's embarrassments, provided he can get sufficient dough. 1896 Ade Artie ii. 12 I pulled in the dough and picked up the cards. 1917 [see boodle1 2 b]. 1919 War Slang in Athenæum 22 Aug. 791/2 ‘Dough’ denotes money, but more especially the weekly pay. 1942 Wodehouse Money in Bank (1946) xxvii. 241 She's got more dough than you could shake a stick at. 1943 Coast to Coast 1942 59 It might mean that I'll get a chance of makin' some dough. 1944 C. A. Lawrence Narrowing Wind 60 You're in the dough and you kin afford to live there better'n I kin. 1955 Times 3 Aug. 5/4 I'm going back to business and make myself a little dough. |
| attrib. 1904 N.Y. Even. Post 7 Nov. 3 This is Tammany's regular annual ‘dough day’—that is, the day on which the district leaders come to Tammany Hall for election day funds. 1906 Ibid. 24 Oct. 4 In the country, election day without some sort of ‘dough-bag’ is an unheard-of thing. No ‘dough-bag’ means no votes. |
3. Any soft, pasty mass.
| 1559 Morwyng Evonym. 220 The leaves of hempe..Water should be poured to it, and when they are made dowe together, then to be destilled. 1623 Lisle ælfric on O. & N. Test. (1638) Pref. 4 To mould the dow of artificiall marble, and bake it in killes for building. 1862 Jrnl. Soc. Arts X. 326/2 It [the India-rubber] may be dissolved either into ‘varnish’, or the more solid ‘dough’, as it is called, by the digestion of the sheet in..naphtha. |
4. a. north. dial. (See
quot. and yule-dough.)
| 1777 Brand Pop. Antiq., Yule Doughs (1870) I. 293 The Yule-Dough, or Dow, was a kind of Baby, or little Image of Paste, which our Bakers used..to bake at this season and present to their customers. Ibid., note, Dough or Dow is vulgarly used in the North for a little cake. |
b. A pudding or dumpling of dough:
cf. duff and
dough-boy.
5. attrib. and
Comb., as
dough-bait,
dough-cake,
dough-pan,
dough-pill;
dough-dividing,
dough-kneaded,
dough-like adjs.;
dough-ball, (
U.S.) ?
= doughnut;
dough-balls, the tufts of a kind of seaweed,
Polysiphonia Olneyi;
dough-brake,
-kneader,
-maker,
-mixer, machines for kneading and mixing dough;
dough-cake, (
a) a cake made of dough; (
b)
dial. a simpleton, a fool;
dough-head, (
U.S.) ‘a soft-pated fellow, a fool’ (Bartlett
Dict. Amer. 1860);
dough-raiser, (see
quot.);
† dough-rib, an implement for scraping and cleaning the kneading-trough. Also
dough-bake, etc.
| 1904 Westm. Gaz. 19 Nov. 3/1 On the bank..men and boys..are fishing with quill-floats and *dough-bait, the least artistic form of sport. |
| 1864 Louie's last Term (N.Y.) 168 *Dough-balls were her acknowledged passion. |
| 1881 W. G. Farlow Marine Algæ 171 In its typical form P[olysiphonia] Olneyi forms dense soft tufts, sometimes called *dough-balls by the sea-shore population. |
| c 1750 M. Palmer Devonshire Dialogue (1839) 33 How unvitty and cat-handed you go about it, you *dough-cake. 1839 F. Trollope Dom. Manners Amer. (ed. 5) 272 It won't convene for me to be mixing doe cakes and Johny cakes all day. 1844 Lee & Frost 10 Yrs. Oregon xxii. 290 Becoming quite hungry we got out some flour, and baked some dough cakes. 1892 Encycl. Cookery I. 525/1 Small Dough Cake... Large Dough Cake. 1921 W. de la Mare Memoirs of Midget 8 Stuffing himself out with bread-and-dripping or dough-cake. |
| 1854 M. J. Holmes Tempest & Sunshine xv. 222 He inwardly accused them all of being ‘*doughheads’. |
| 1642 Milton Apol. Smect. (1851) 288 He..demeanes himselfe in the dull expression so like a *dough kneaded thing. |
| 1874 Knight Dict. Mech. I. 732/1 *Dough-kneader, a pair of rollers, one corrugated lengthwise and the other transversely, working in a frame with two inclined boards. |
| 1928 A. B. Callow Food & Health 25 The ‘indigestibility’ of very new bread is due to its *dough-like consistency. |
| 1874 Knight Dict. Mech. I. 732/1 *Dough-mixer. |
| 1841 Lane Arab. Nts. I. 108 ‘Uncover the *dough-pan’. |
| 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. i. iii, His chief Talapoin, to whom no *dough-pill he could knead and publish was other than medicinal and sacred. |
| 1874 Knight Dict. Mech. I. 732/2 *Dough-raiser, a pan in a bath of heated water, to maintain a temperature in the dough favorable to fermentation. |
| c 1325 Gloss. W. de Biblesw. in Wright Voc. 155 Un rastuer, a *douw-ribbe. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 129/1 Dowrys or dowrybbe, sarpa. 1530 Palsgr. 215/1 Dowe rybbe, ratissevr a paste. |
▪ II. dough, v. rare.
(
dəʊ)
[f. prec. n.] † 1. intr. To work in dough; to make dough.
Obs.| 1631 Heywood 1st Pt. Fair Maid of W. ii. Wks. 1874 II. 277 When corne grew to be at an high rate, my father [a baker] never dowed after. |
2. trans. To make (something) into or like dough.
to dough in: to mix in with the dough (see
doughing vbl. n.).
| 1887 N. & Q. 7th Ser. III. 16/1 Doughing together the paste formed by the yerba and water. |
Hence
ˈdoughing,
ppl. a.| 1883 Grant White Washington Adams 33 Pleasing and picturesque, and yet souring and doughing. |