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icing

noun

Simple meaning

A sweet, often creamy and thick glaze made primarily of sugar, often enriched with ingredients like butter, egg whites.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

eyesing

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈaɪsɪŋ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. cooking

    A sweet, often creamy and thick glaze made primarily of sugar, often enriched with ingredients like butter, egg whites, or flavorings, typically used for baked goods.

  2. The formation of frost or ice on a surface

  3. The process of forming a layer of ice on a surface.

  4. ice hockey

    A minor violation of ice hockey rules, occurring when a player shoots the puck from his/her side of the red line so that it crosses the goal line on the opponent's side. A team playing short-handed is not penalized for this.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: (cooking) A sweet, often creamy and thick glaze made primarily of sugar, often enriched with ingredients like butter, egg whites, or flavorings, typically used for baked goods.

Used this way, icing is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a food and cooking use: everyday in kitchens and recipes.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Cooking/food
  • Everyday conversation

Nearby words

  • ice , used mainly in Regional English

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Sweet / flavored

icing sugarwhite icingchocolate icinglike icingcake icing

Formation / conditions

icing conditions

Other combinations

carburetor icingpink icing

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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

  • ice

    Icing; frosting ("a sweet, often creamy and thick glaze made primarily of sugar").

  • frost

    A shade of white, like that of frost.

  • frosting

    Icing, a sweet, often creamy and thick, covering for cakes and other baked goods.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • icing sugarnounCompound term

    Finely powdered sugar used to make icing.

  • icing the pucknounCompound term

    The act of shooting the puck from within your own defensive area the length of the rink beyond the opponent's goal.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: sweet

iceRegionalfrosting

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.