bakery

Etymology

It is formed from English bake + -ery,^[2][3][4][5] probably partly after baker, especially in the sense of a place where bread is baked.^[2] Dictionary.com analyses it as baker with the suffix -y, now understood as bake with -ery.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Baked material, something that has been baked: 1545, in Joye's Exposicion of Daniel, a rare sense now obsolete.^[2] The 1989 OED and Merriam-Webster give 1545 for the work of a baker instead.^[7][4]

Semantic evolution

The sense of a place where bread is made is recorded from 1598,^[2] although Etymonline dates it to 1810^[3] and the 1989 OED to about 1820.^[7] The work or trade of a baker is recorded from 1615, in Markham,^[2] a sense that Merriam-Webster now labels archaic.^[4] The word replaced the older bakehouse, recorded from about 1400.^[3] The sense of a shop selling bread and cakes began in the United States:^[2][7] British travellers noted it as an Americanism by 1832.^[3] Baked goods themselves were called bakery from 1882;^[2] the Dictionary of American Regional English records this use chiefly in areas of German settlement.^[8]

Timeline

• 1545 – baked material (obsolete).^[2]
• 1598 – a place where bread is baked.^[2]
• 1615 – the work or trade of a baker.^[2]
• c. 1820 – a place for making bread, in the 1989 OED.^[7]
• 1832 – a shop selling baked goods, noted as an Americanism.^[3]
• 1882 – baked goods.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A place where bread, cakes and pastries are baked.^[9][4][2]
2. A shop that sells baked goods: We bought rolls at the bakery on the corner.^[9][4]
3. Baked goods, especially sweet ones.^[2][8]
4. (archaic) The work or trade of a baker.^[4][2]

Related words

• bake
• baker
• bakehouse
• batch

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins