dough

noun

ˈdō 

1

: a mixture that consists essentially of flour or meal and a liquid (such as milk or water) and is stiff enough to knead or roll

2

: something resembling dough especially in consistency

3

: money

doesn't have much dough

4

military : doughboy

doughlike

ˈdō-ˌlīk 

adjective

Synonyms

• bread [slang]
• bucks
• cabbage [slang]
• cash
• change
• chips
• coin
• currency
• gold
• green
• jack [slang]
• kale [slang]
• legal tender
• lolly [British]
• long green [slang]
• loot
• lucre
• money
• moola [slang]
• moolah
• needful
• pelf
• scratch [slang]
• shekels
• sheqels
• shekelim
• shekalim
• sheqalim
• tender
• wampum

Examples of dough in a Sentence

I don't have much dough.

didn't have to spend a lot of dough for a new stereo

Recent Examples on the Web

One of your machines—the one that cuts the dough into tiny trees—passed its manual maintenance check a few months ago but suddenly begins producing amorphous blobs of dough instead of crisp, clean cuts. —Bill Rokos, Forbes, 24 Jan. 2025

Veggie options are often afterthoughts at Sacramento dumpling houses; shiitake mushrooms’ earthy flavor bursts out of these ones’ green spinach dough, escorted by cabbage, glass noodles and carrots. —Benjy Egel, Sacramento Bee, 23 Jan. 2025

Young sets the pair strange tasks, like hurling uncooked dough at a wall (possibly a reference to letting the people eat cake) or kissing each other through that same lump of dough, or screaming in an audience member’s face. —Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 21 Jan. 2025

Potassium bromate is an additive sometimes used in bread and other baked goods to strengthen the texture of the dough. —Yaakov Katz, Newsweek, 17 Jan. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Middle English doh, dogh, dowe, going back to Old English dāg, going back to Germanic *daiga- (whence Middle Dutch deech "dough," Old High German teig, Old Norse deig, deigr, Gothic daigs), ablaut derivative from the base of *digan-, *dīgan- "to knead, shape" (whence Gothic digan, gadigan "to knead, form from clay"), going back to Indo-European *d^hei̯ǵ^h- "knead, shape" — more at feign

First Known Use

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing dough

• dough box
• mother dough
• rolling in (the) dough

Kids Definition

dough

noun

ˈdō 

1

: a soft mass of moistened flour or meal thick enough to knead or roll

2

: something resembling dough especially in consistency

3

: money sense 1a

doughy

ˈdō-ē

adjective