ingredient
noun
Simple meaning
One of the foods used to make a dish.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihngreedeeuhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪnɡˈɹidiənt
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Food that is a component of a mixture in cooking
One of the substances present in a mixture, especially food.
figurative
A necessary element to achieve a certain goal; a component.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Food that is a component of a mixture in cooking
Used this way, ingredient 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
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Cooking/food
- Everyday conversation
Nearby words
- element , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use ingredient
- “Sugar is a key ingredient in most dessert recipes.”
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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.