dough

Pluraldoughs (some meanings)

Formsdoughs, doughing, doughed

1. 1
   baking mixturenoununcountable

   A thick, pliable mixture of flour and other ingredients such as water, eggs, or butter, shaped into a particular form and then baked.

   Let the bread dough rise in a warm place for about an hour.

   She rolled the pie dough thin and pressed it into the dish.

   Note

   Behind the word is a root meaning "to knead, form, mold", which is just what is done to it; Old English had it as dāg. As a mass noun it takes some or a ball of (some dough, a ball of dough), while the plural doughs sorts kinds, as when a baker compares pizza and pie doughs.

2. 2
   moneynounslanguncountable

   Money.

   That food truck is making serious dough on weekends.

   Lend me some dough till payday, would you?

   Similarcash, bread, money

   Note

   This slang for money has lasted well: O. Henry's The Four Million (1906) has Have ye got th' dough?, Saul Bellow's Humboldt's Gift scolds someone for not putting away some dough, and people still talk of raking in the dough. It suits banter and storytelling, not a bank form or a business email.

3. 3
   mix flourverbtransitive

   To turn flour or a similar ingredient into dough.

   Large mixers dough the flour and water before the loaves are shaped.

   For the test, each flour sample was doughed with the same amount of water.

4. 4
   foot soldiernounslangUScountableabbreviationclipping

   Clipping of doughboy. Dated US slang.

   Note

   The clipping keeps doughboy's grammar, a dough and two doughs, and its era: the American infantryman, above all of World War I. It is soldiers' slang, so in plain prose doughboy is the safer choice, and the context has to make the soldier clear, since dough alone first suggests bread or money.

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