pastry
noun
Simple meaning
A baked food item made from flour and fat pastes such as pie crust.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
paystreeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpeɪstɹi
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
countable
A baked food item made from flour and fat pastes such as pie crust; also tarts, bear claws, napoleons, puff pastries, etc.
uncountable
The food group formed by the various kinds of pastries.
uncountableculinary industry
Desserts of all kinds, whether or not these incorporate the baked item made from flour and fat, or that section of a kitchen that prepares these.
uncountable
The type of light flour-based dough used in pastries.
A dough of flour and water and shortening
uncountable
The act or art of making pastry.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A baked food item made from flour and fat pastes such as pie crust; also tarts, bear claws, napoleons, puff pastries, etc.
Used this way, pastry is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use pastry
- “She bought a delicious apple pastry from the bakery this morning.”noun
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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.